The Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, assured today that none of the passengers on the ship MV Hondius, where a hantavirus outbreak has broken out, has expressed opposition to undergoing quarantine when they are evacuated to the Gómez Ulla Military Hospital in Madrid from the port of Granadilla de Abona in Tenerife, where the technical team from the Ministry of Health will also travel tomorrow.
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In an interview on TVE, reported by Europa Press, he also explained that Spain has requested the EU health authorities to establish a protocol, although Spain is carrying out its own with experts in the field.
Padilla said that he is in personal contact with the 14 Spaniards on the ship and that they “are well, have no symptoms” and added that in terms of morale, although they have gone through difficult moments, they are now better since they left Cape Verde and eager to arrive in Spain.
“None have expressed any opposition to me in this regard,” specified the Secretary of State for Health concerning the quarantine that the 14 Spanish passengers of the mentioned cruise will have to undergo once they are evacuated from the ship and transferred to the mainland.
In fact, he said he trusts that it will be “voluntary,” although they know it can be “long and tedious,” but he believes there will be no problem after what “they must have gone through on that vessel.”
Consent
In the protocol being established, it has been agreed that they will be presented with a document to sign their agreement to the quarantine, but in case this does not happen and someone opposes it, the Secretary of State for Health recalled that there is a law dating from April 14, 1986, on Special Measures in public health situations, which authorizes the Government to make decisions and that the legal team already has it prepared if necessary, although he hopes it will not be.
These measures foreseen by the Law, he specified, must be defined towards “a specific population, be proportional, well justified, safeguarding all fundamental rights of the population,” but also serve to “preserve the public health good.”
If its application were necessary, the Ministry’s order would have to be endorsed by the judicial authority. Regarding the duration of the quarantine, Padilla indicated that it will be seen and reviewed based on the last contact each passenger had, while recalling that contact measures were already established on the ship to avoid transmission risk.
However, he pointed out that work is also being done with the European Union to establish “general guidelines” and, moreover, many countries have told them they will wait for Spain to publish its protocol to follow what their experts say.
Padilla did not want to enter the political controversy, with complaints from the president of the Canary Islands about not being informed, and limited himself to pointing out that the minister has been in contact with him and that since Tuesday there have been daily regular meetings with the technical teams of the Canary Islands, at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
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“Meetings that take place in a climate of total and absolute institutional cooperation,” he said, and although he emphasized that sometimes they do not agree, they all share the same concern and that is that everything “goes well.”
No blame
Therefore, he stressed that he has “no reproach to make” and announced that tomorrow the ministerial team will likely travel to the field, where “the external health teams have already been working for many days with all the teams from the Health Department and the government of the Canary Islands.”
Padilla also wanted to downplay the fact that initially the Government said the ship was going to dock and later specified that it was going to anchor. According to him, things are being “refined” with contact with the specific experts: “What we will definitely have is that we will do it with all safety measures and we will have technical and scientific knowledge at the international level with the EU and the WHO.”
However, in making the decision for the ship to anchor, he admitted that they took into account “elements of concern” seen in the Canary Islands, which leaned towards this option.
That, he added, does not mean there was “epidemiological risk” and he recalled that on the ship, in addition to the crew and passengers, there are two Dutch infectologists, one person from the WHO, and another from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control who help them understand the situation on the ship. In fact, he explained that it is in “perfect conditions of order and cleanliness.”
The ‘Hondius’, in “perfect conditions of order and cleanliness”
Once disembarkation occurs, the Hondius will have to continue its journey to the Netherlands, according to the Secretary of State, but he did not clarify when the disinfection will take place. In any case, he emphasized that this will be done “at the most appropriate time and place and without any risk to the civilian population of the Canary Islands nor to the workers who will be part of the operation.”
Regarding repatriation, he explained, as did previously the director of Civil Protection, Virginia Barcones, also on TVE, that there are three levels of repatriation: the first, for Spaniards, handled by the Ministry of Defense; the second, for European Union countries, noting that the Netherlands has a very specific responsibility since the ship’s flag is from there; and the third level, for countries outside the EU.
About the latter, he stated that the U.S. has sent a plane with disease control members to repatriate its citizens and just yesterday the United Kingdom also committed to carrying out the evacuation of its own.
In this regard, he specified that this Friday, mid-morning, a meeting was scheduled with the governments that have shown commitment to resolve all doubts.
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