Hantavirus-hit MV Hondius heads to Netherlands for chemical deep-cleaning after all passengers disembark

The cruise ship is right now en path to the Netherlands after its final passengers had been evacuated and flown to their home international locations. The vessel is anticipated to dock in Rotterdam on Can also 17, with entirely 25 crew people and scientific mavens final on board

Following a hantavirus outbreak that killed three people and compelled mass evacuations, the posh cruise MV Hondius has departed Spain’s Canary Islands for the Netherlands.

The crisis began in early April after the ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina. Successfully being officials deem the first victims—a Dutch couple—diminished in size the Andes hantavirus while mountain climbing in rodent-infested areas of South The United States earlier than boarding. Unlike most hantaviruses, the Andes stress is the entirely one known to provide you the choice to
particular person-to-particular person transmission, resulting in a localised cluster on the ship.

As of Can also 12, there are 9 reported instances (7 confirmed, 2 probable) and 3 deaths (a Dutch couple and a German girl).

The evacuation protocol

The evacuation and repatriation job at the Port of Granadilla in Tenerife used to be a logistical feat of “bio-exclusion” designed to prevent a localised outbreak.

Upon the ship’s arrival on Can also 10, the Spanish government, in coordination with the World Successfully being Group (WHO), established a sterile hall from the gangway to a hastily of waiting structure plane. Passengers had been no longer allowed to enter the usual airport terminal; in its place, they had been processed on the tarmac by personnel in burly Level 4 Non-public Protective Gear (PPE).

These identified as excessive-risk or symptomatic had been transported in specialised portable biocontainment units (on the total frequently known as “bubbles”) to kind obvious no air from their instant vicinity might per chance reach the flight crews or scientific workers.

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Once these passengers reached their home international locations, the protocols remained uncompromising. Ensuing from the incubation interval for Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) is exceptionally lengthy—up to 42 days—all 161 passengers and final crew people had been served with major quarantine orders.

In the Netherlands, for occasion, repatriated citizens had been moved by job of “white-glove” professional transport to their homes, where they have to live below strict surveillance for six weeks. Other countries, love america and France, opted to pass their citizens at as soon as into government-monitored isolation products and providers to be certain instant rep admission to to intensive care have to symptoms manifest.

Amid the ongoing response, a video shared on Monday by operator Oceanwide Expeditions showed captain Jan Dobrogowski paying tribute to the “harmony and peaceful strength” of every person on board, while praising the crew’s “braveness and selfless resolve.”

MV Hondius Captain Jan Dobrogowski thanked passengers and crew for his or her ‘persistence and discipline’ after a hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch vessel, which used to be carrying 147 people from 23 international locations when the respiratory illness used to be first reported https://t.co/SCdBk0u7LP pic.twitter.com/gH6jPgtUxS

— Reuters (@Reuters) Can also 11, 2026

Meanwhile, the MV Hondius is sailing with entirely a skeleton crew on board to the Netherlands, where this will endure a multi-stage chemical disinfection at a deep-cleaning terminal overseen by the Dutch Nationwide Institute for Public Successfully being and the Environment (RIVM).

WHO Director-Customary Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reassured the final public, stating, “There is nothing to anguish; the risk is low, here is no longer one other Covid,” while aloof recommending a strict quarantine for all returning passengers.