An air ambulance transporting two suspected hantavirus patients from a cruise ship off Cape Verde to the Netherlands was forced to divert to Spain’s Canary Islands after being denied permission to enter Moroccan airspace, according to Canary Island authorities who spoke to Spanish news agency EFE.
The aircraft landed in Gran Canaria on Tuesday for what local authorities described as a technical refueling stop after plans to stop in Marrakech were abandoned. An AFP reporter observed the aircraft at the airport.
EFE, citing sources in the Canary Islands regional government, said Spanish authorities authorized the stop on the condition that no passengers or crew disembark or board the plane during the operation. Refueling was carried out externally by airport ground personnel.
“It is a technical stop to refuel and continue the planned journey,” EFE quoted the sources as saying.
The patients were being evacuated from the Dutch expedition cruise ship Hondius, which has remained near Cape Verde after health concerns emerged involving suspected cases of hantavirus, a rare disease transmitted mainly through exposure to infected rodents and their bodily fluids.
Dutch health authorities and the World Health Organization have been monitoring the situation, while Spanish authorities in the Canary Islands have coordinated contingency procedures linked to the aircraft’s stopover.
Neither Moroccan authorities nor the Moroccan civil aviation authorities had publicly commented by Tuesday evening on the reported refusal to allow the aircraft to cross Moroccan airspace.
Hantavirus infections are rare but can cause severe respiratory or hemorrhagic illness depending on the strain. Human to human transmission remains uncommon and is generally associated with limited variants identified in South America, according to global health authorities.
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