ROTTERDAM (NETHERLANDS): The cruise ship that sparked global alarm after a deadly outbreak of hantavirus made its final approach to Rotterdam today (Monday), with the remaining skeleton crew facing weeks of quarantine.
The MV Hondius is expected to dock in the Dutch port before midday (1000 GMT), according to officials, before disembarking the remaining 27 people on board, including 25 crew and two medical staff.
AFP reporters on board a separate vessel caught sight of the ship as it steamed towards Rotterdam, Europe's biggest port, for final docking and disinfection.
The ship, operated by Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, made headlines after three passengers died from hantavirus, a rare virus for which no vaccines nor specific treatments exist.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has scrambled to reassure the world that the outbreak was not a repeat of the Covid pandemic, stressing that contagion was very rare.
"There is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on May 12.
However, the virus has an incubation period of several weeks, meaning more cases from the ship's occupants could emerge in the future, Tedros warned.
Hantavirus has been confirmed in seven patients, with one other probable case, according to an AFP tally from official sources.
The most recent positive test came from Canada in a patient who was onboard the Hondius, officials said late Sunday.
Andes strain
The people disembarking on Monday comprise 17 from the Philippines, four from the Netherlands (two crew and two medical staff), four from Ukraine, one from Russia, and one from Poland.
Some of them will stay in quarantine facilities at the port, while others will self-isolate at home.
Also on board is the body of a German woman who died during the voyage.
After docking, the ship will undergo thorough cleaning and disinfection procedures, according to the operator.
The MV Hondius's voyage began on April 1 in Ushuaia, Argentina, taking in some remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean before steaming north to Cape Verde.
The trip was supposed to finish there, but the ship eventually sailed to Tenerife in the Canary Islands for the evacuations by plane.
The MV Hondius presented diplomatic challenges as different countries negotiated over who would receive it and treat its passengers.
Cape Verde refused to take the ship, which remained anchored offshore of the capital Praia as three people were evacuated to Europe by air.
Spain allowed the vessel to anchor off its Canary Islands for the evacuation of passengers and crew, but the Atlantic archipelago's regional government fiercely opposed the measure.
Hantavirus spreads from the urine, faeces, and saliva of infected rodents and is endemic in Argentina, where the voyage began.
Those infected have the Andes virus, the only strain of hantavirus that can spread between people.
Kiki Hirschfeldt, a spokeswoman for the operator, said it was too early to say what impact the outbreak could have on the appetite for cruises.
"I mean, for as far as we know right now, the virus was brought on board, and that can happen in a hotel, in an airplane, in a boat," she told AFP.
