Travel arrangements for European passengers aboard the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship have been made, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told a press conference in Madrid on Saturday.
"I can confirm that return flights to France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have already been planned," he told a joint press conference with Health Minister Mónica García.
There were passengers and crew from 23 countries aboard the Hondius.
Grande-Marlaska added that two planes had been placed at the disposal of those EU citizens lacking air transport of this kind through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The United Kingdom and the United States had announced repatriation flights for their citizens, he added.
The Hondius is expected to arrive off the port of Granadilla in southern Tenerife on Sunday morning between 4 am and 6 am (0300-0500 GMT). Passengers would begin disembarking after dawn, Grande-Marlaska said.
All those aboard would be checked for symptoms, he said. The 14 Spanish citizens would be taken to Tenerife South Airport and flown to Madrid by military plane, where they would go into quarantine in a hospital, the ministers said.
Passengers would be brought ashore by boat from the Hondius lying at anchor offshore and then taken to the airport by bus once planes from their countries were ready for take-off. They would be transported directly onto the runway, the ministers said.
Luggage apart from hand luggage would remain aboard the Hondius.
Once disembarkation is complete, the Hondius and its remaining crew will leave for the Netherlands, where disinfection will be carried out, García said. The body of the German who died during the cruise will remain aboard.
She said the arrangements had been made in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union, and the Dutch and Spanish health authorities.
García confirmed information from the ship's operators that no one aboard was currently showing symptoms of infection with hantavirus.
The Hondius left Cape Verde for the Canary Islands on Wednesday evening. In an update late on Friday evening, the WHO said there had been six confirmed and two suspected cases. In three of the eight, the patient had died - an elderly Dutch couple and a German woman.
Earlier Spanish health officials reported that a second woman in Spain was suspected of having contracted the Andes hantavirus strain.
She had been on the same KLM flight on which an infected Dutch woman, who later died, tried to take from Johannesburg to Amsterdam after leaving the virus-stricken luxury cruise ship Hondius last month.
The woman in question lives in Catalonia and has been admitted to hospital for quarantine as a precautionary measure, the Spanish Health Ministry said on X on Friday evening. However, she is not showing any symptoms of the disease.
Results of possible testing not yet known
Earlier on Friday, a woman in Alicante with mild symptoms of infection was taken to hospital for isolation, said Health Ministry state secretary Javier Padilla.
She had been on the same KLM flight, sitting two rows behind the Dutch woman infected with the hantavirus.
The woman had a mild cough and was therefore possibly also infected, Padilla said. The results of any PCR tests carried out on both women were not immediately known.
The Dutch woman had cut short a cruise on the Hondius to St Helena after her husband died on board. On April 24, she flew to South Africa with his body and tried unsuccessfully to return home the following day.
She was already on board the aircraft with other passengers but was taken off the plane shortly before take-off due to her poor state of health and died shortly afterwards in hospital.
About 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries are reported to have initially been aboard the Hondius, which set sail from Argentina on April 1 and is due to reach Spain's Canary Islands on May 10. However, dozens of people disembarked on St Helena.
Another plane passenger returns home from Spain
The Spanish authorities also reported that another person had left Spain after taking the same flight as the deceased woman.
The South African woman had spent a week in Barcelona and had subsequently returned to her home country, said Padilla.
Health Minister García wrote on X that the woman was symptom-free and had not had close contact with other people in Barcelona.
A flight attendant on the KLM flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam, who had also been in contact with the Dutch woman who died, has now been discharged from hospital. She is not infected, according to the Dutch Health Ministry.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents, infecting people through airborne virus particles from rodent urine, droppings or saliva. Transmission of the Andes strain to humans is rare, according to the WHO.
