Two Indian nationals aboard a Dutch-flagged vessel caught in a Hantavirus scare near Spain's Canary Islands are healthy and asymptomatic, the Indian Embassy in Madrid said on Sunday, even as the crew members were evacuated to the Netherlands for quarantine.
The vessel, MV Hondius, carrying around 150 people including two Indian nationals, arrived in Spain amid concerns linked to a Hantavirus outbreak.
According to the Indian Embassy, the ship anchored off the coast of Spain's Canary Islands as authorities initiated health safety procedures in coordination with World Health Organisation protocols and Spanish authorities.
In a statement posted by India in Spain, the Embassy said the two Indian nationals were travelling as crew members on the vessel and had been moved to the Netherlands as part of precautionary health measures.
"The two Indian nationals are healthy and asymptomatic," the Embassy said.
Just in: Indian embassy in Spain says, 2 Indian nationals "asymptomatic" after Hantavirus scare on ship MV Hondius anchored off the coast of Canary Island.
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) May 10, 2026
Embassy in statement says Indian nationals were part of the crew & are taken to Netherlands for quarantine pic.twitter.com/gaOU51iMDe
It added that, according to information shared by the Spanish National Centre for Emergency Monitoring and Coordination (CENEM), the Indian crew members had been evacuated to the Netherlands "where they will be quarantined as per relevant health safety protocol".
The Embassy said passengers onboard the vessel disembarked in accordance with protocols established by the WHO and Spanish authorities after the ship anchored near the Canary Islands.
"The passengers onboard disembarked from the ship in accordance with the protocol established by WHO and Spanish authorities," the statement read.
No infections involving the two Indian nationals have been reported so far.
The Indian Embassy in Madrid said officials were in constant touch with Spanish authorities and the Indian crew members to monitor the situation.
"The Ambassador is in close contact with the Spanish authorities and the two Indian nationals and is regularly monitoring the situation to assure their well-being and safety," the statement said.
The development comes amid heightened global attention around infectious disease monitoring and maritime health protocols involving international vessels.
An American passenger from a hantavirus-hit Dutch cruise ship has tested positive for the virus, and another has mild symptoms, the US Department of Health and Human Services have announced.
All 17 American citizens from the MV Hondius cruise ship are currently en route via an airlift to the United States, with the two travelling in the plane's biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution, the department wrote in a post on the social platform X.
The airlift will first take passengers to the Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, before transferring the passenger with mild symptoms to a second RESPTC at their final destination, it said.
"Upon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition," the department said in the post.
As of Saturday, there were eight suspected cases associated with the outbreak and three deaths, it said.
The incubation period for hantavirus, from first exposure to symptoms, is estimated at one to eight weeks, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, reports Xinhua news agency.
The disease is usually spread by rodents but can, in rare cases, move from person to person, and kills more than a third of people infected.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, 20 nationals evacuated from the hantavirus-affected cruise ship MV Hondius were isolated in a northwest England hospital upon their return on Sunday, as authorities stepped up outbreak containment and monitoring.
The passengers landed in Manchester earlier in the day before being transferred by bus to Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside, where they will remain under medical observation for 72 hours.
In a joint statement, local National Health Service (NHS) authorities said the group would stay in a "managed setting for clinical assessment and testing." If they remain symptom-free, they will later be allowed to return home and continue self-isolation for a further 42 days.
The British government said all passengers and crew members returning from the MV Hondius would undergo a total of 45 days of isolation and monitoring. Follow-up work is also underway for individuals who may have been in contact with confirmed or suspected cases.
The emergency measures follow a hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius, which has resulted in at least eight confirmed or suspected cases and three reported deaths.
As part of the broader response to the outbreak, the British government also deployed a specialist military and medical team to Tristan da Cunha, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, after a British national on the island tested positive for hantavirus.
According to the British Ministry of Defence, six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachuted onto the island, while oxygen supplies and medical equipment were air-dropped simultaneously.
Tristan da Cunha, a volcanic island group with a population of 221 people, is regarded as Britain's most remote inhabited overseas territory. The islands have no airstrip and are normally accessible only by sea.
The Defence Ministry described the mission as the first time the British military had deployed medical personnel via parachute to provide humanitarian assistance.
The British government said the risk to the general public remained "very low."
