Cruise ship MV Hondius docks in Rotterdam after deadly hantavirus outbreak

MV Hondius, the cruise ship that sparked global alarm after a deadly hantavirus outbreak, ended its voyage on Monday, with Rotterdam in The Netherlands being its final destination.

The vessel docked in the Dutch port shortly after 10 a.m. local time (0800 UTC).

Authorities have made quarantine arrangements for the ship's skeleton crew of 27 people — 25 crew and two medical staff — that have remained on board.

The Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship had been carrying around 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries when it reported three deaths from hantavirus earlier this month.

Hantaviruses come from rodents. People become infected through contact with infected rodents or their urine, droppings or saliva, mainly by breathing in contaminated particles.

The virus can cause a severe and sometimes deadly lung infection called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What will happen after MV Hondius arrives in Rotterdam?

A total of 17 people from the Philippines, four from the Netherlands, four from Ukraine, one from Russia and one from Poland will disembark the Hondius after a more than two week-ordeal.

The ship's operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said that everyone who was still on board is asymptomatic and being closely monitored by the two medics with them.

Some of the people will stay in quarantine facilities at the port, while others will self-isolate at home.

Local authorities said quarantine facilities had been set up for some of the non-Dutch crew. It was not immediately clear ⁠if they would stay there for the full recommended 42-day quarantine period.

The body of a German woman who died during the voyage is also on board.

The Hondius would undergo cleaning and disinfection, Oceanwide Expeditions said.

Nightmare expedition

The Hondius began its South Atlantic journey from Argentina on April 1.

Hondius had been stranded ​off Cape Verde — its intended final destination — after the African archipelagic country refused to take the ship in due to the outbreak first reported on May 2.

The ship then set sail for Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where Spanish authorities managed a complex repatriation operation and evacuated over 120 passengers and crew.

The evacuees were sent either to their home countries or to the Netherlands, which has a special responsibility because the cruise is Dutch-flagged.

Pandemic fears

The people who left the ship and those who came in contact with them were ​quarantined in several nations around the world.

"There is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak," World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on May 12.

The virus, however, has an incubation period of up to six weeks. This means that more cases from the people on the cruise could emerge in the future.

As of May 15, there were 10 WHO reported cases, including the three deaths. Two of the cases are probable.

On Saturday, Canada said that one of its nationals who had been a passenger on the Hondius had provisionally tested positive. The WHO said on ⁠Sunday ​it was waiting for official updates.

Those infected on the ship have the Andes virus, which is believed to be capable of human-to-human transmission.

Since the outbreak was reported, the WHO has scrambled to allay fears that it was not a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic, assuring that contagion was very rare.

Edited by: Wesley Dockery