Message by the WHO Director-General to the people of Tenerife regarding the hantavirus response

To the people of Tenerife,

My name is Tedros, and I serve as the Director-General of the World Health Organization, the United Nations agency responsible for global public health. It is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, it is necessary.

I want to speak to you directly, not through press releases or technical briefings, but as one human being to another, because you deserve that.

I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word "outbreak" and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment.

But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now.

The virus aboard the MV Hondius is the Andes strain of hantavirus. It is serious. Three people have lost their lives, and our hearts go out to their families. The risk to you, living your daily life in Tenerife, is low. This is the WHO's assessment, and we do not make it lightly.