"On behalf of the World Health Organisation, on behalf of the passengers now home, and on behalf of those families around the world who watched this island with hope: thank you. From the depth of my heart, thank you," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in an open letter to the Tenerife population.
Amid international alarm over the rare outbreak of hantavirus, for which there are no vaccines or licensed treatments, Tenerife agreed to allow the MV Hondius to anchor last Sunday, enabling the evacuation of more than 120 people so they could be flown back to their home countries.
Three passengers from the Hondius cruise from Argentina to Cape Verde have died, while six others are confirmed to have Andes virus -- the only strain of hantavirus that can spread between people -- and two other cases are suspected, according to a count from official figures.
The central Spanish government had stressed that there would be no contact with the population on Tenerife -- the largest of its Canary Islands -- during the evacuation, which concluded Monday.
And WHO has repeatedly insisted the risk to the wider public was low.
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Tedros recalled standing at the small industrial port of Granadilla on Tenerife on Monday watching "the last of the passengers from the MV Hondius board the vehicles that would carry them home".
"I watched health workers in protective equipment move with calm professionalism. I watched Spanish officials coordinate with quiet precision. And I watched and felt your support and solidarity," he wrote.
He hailed a clear "logistical success", pointing out that "the risk assessment held. The protocols worked. The corridor held".
But he stressed that what had happened in Tenerife was "rarer than competence".
"It was moral courage, the willingness of an entire island, an entire nation, to say: these are human beings, and we will not turn away from them," he said.
The WHO chief said the island's response to the call for assistance was especially remarkable in the current climate.
"We live in a time when it is easy to close doors, to turn inward, to let fear harden into hostility," he said.
"Tenerife chose differently."
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