Countries airlift nationals evacuated from virus-hit cruise ship
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
France's Prime Minister says that one of the passengers repatriated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship in the Atlantic has shown symptoms. The individual was among five French nationals flown back on Sunday from the MV Hondius, currently moored off Tenerife in Spain.
Also in the programme: Iran says it has sent a response via Pakistan to the latest US plan to end the war with counter-proposals reported to include a separation of talks on the immediate conflict and Tehran's nuclear programme; the story of a criminal underworld in Brazil; and the choir, here in the UK, singing music based on whale song!
(Photo: They were pictured boarding buses to Tenerife's airport after reaching land. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.8 | Hello, welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.7 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm Paul Henley. |
| 0:16.3 | First today, various flights have taken off from the Spanish island of Tenerife to repatriate groups |
| 0:22.6 | of foreign passengers who were today evacuated from a cruise ship hit by a deadly virus outbreak. |
| 0:29.3 | The M.V. Hondias docked off the coast of the island in an operation masterminded by the |
| 0:34.5 | World Health Organization to stem a further spread of hanta virus from which |
| 0:39.1 | three passengers have died. Spain's health minister, Monica Garthia, said earlier in the day |
| 0:45.2 | that things had gone according to plan. This operation is an unprecedented operation. I want |
| 0:51.3 | to thanks to the WHO, the ECDCC to all the administrations, all the countries |
| 0:57.6 | that are involved. This operation requires the cooperation of 23 countries. I want to remark |
| 1:05.0 | this. 23 countries are involved in this operation. I want to thanks all the institutions. |
| 1:12.9 | Virologists think that people on board were infected by rodents in places the ship had previously |
| 1:18.4 | visited. WHO officials were on hand on the dock in Tenerife to reassure the public that this was |
| 1:25.1 | not like a coronavirus outbreak and that risks were extremely |
| 1:29.0 | limited. Deanna Rojas is head of the emerging zoonosis unit at the WHO. She told NewsHour what would |
| 1:36.7 | happen next to those who'd been evacuated today. Each of the passengers and of course the crew |
| 1:42.3 | will have to have a quarantine of around 42 days, given the long incubation period of this virus, and then they will go into further testing once they arrive to their home country and they are finally expatriated. So that's the process. During these 42 days, the fever or developing of symptoms will be assessed or making sure |
| 2:03.3 | if there are symptoms that are appearing, they can be notified to the public health authorities |
| 2:08.3 | to guarantee the patient improvement and safety and, of course, to avoid further spread of the |
| 2:15.0 | virus. Well, a short while ago, our southern and eastern Europe correspondent, |
| 2:18.8 | Sarah Rainsford, speaking from the seafront in Tenerife, |
... |
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