The MV Hondius, which had been sailing from the Canary Islands, where passengers were escorted off and quarantined, arrived at the Port of Rotterdam for disinfection. No one on board was reported to be experiencing any symptoms. After disinfection, the vessel will be allowed to sail again, and public health officials will inspect it before it leaves.
The cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has arrived at the Port of Rotterdam for disinfection, carrying the body of a German victim.
It comes as a Canadian was put into quarantine after becoming the first person in North America to test positive for the rat-borne virus. The MV Hondius has spent the past six days sailing from the Canary Islands, where the remaining passengers were escorted off the vessel by personnel in full-body protective gear and boarded flights to more than 20 countries to enter quarantine. The outbreak on the ship has reached 11 cases, nine of which have been confirmed.
Three passengers have died, including a Dutch couple who health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America. The vessel has made the journey from Tenerife up the coast of Africa and Europe with 25 crew members and two medical personnel. According to the ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions, no one on board is experiencing any symptoms.
Crew members who are unable to return home will be quarantined in the Netherlands, where some two dozen passengers and crew are already, after arriving in the country on a series of flights over the previous two weeks.
The cruise ship MV Hondius, which was affected by a hantavirus outbreak, arrives for disinfection at the Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands, May 18 People wear protective masks on board the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was affected by a hantavirus outbreak, as it arrives for disinfection at the Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands, May 18 A bus carrying medical officials and members of the flight crew of the plane that transported the passengers caught up in the MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak, arrives at a purpose-built quarantine facility located on the outskirts of the Western Australian city of Perth on May 15 Eighteen Americans are currently under observation at specialised healthcare facilities in the United States designed to treat people with dangerous infectious diseases.
After everyone on board has disembarked, the ship will be decontaminated based on Dutch public health guidelines.
'Personal protective measures are being taken to ensure that the cleaners do not need to quarantine after the cleaning,' the health ministry said in a letter to the Dutch parliament last week. Public health officials will inspect the vessel before it is allowed to sail again. The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius is the first known case on a cruise ship. The Dutch company that owns the cruise ship said it doesn't foresee any changes to its operations.
It has an Arctic cruise setting sail from Keflavik, Iceland, on May 29. France's Pasteur Institute said on Saturday it has fully sequenced the Andes virus detected in a French passenger from the MV Hondius cruise ship and found that it matched viruses already known in South America, with no evidence so far of new characteristics that would make it more transmissible or more dangerous.
Dr Bonnie Henry, British Columbia's provincial health officer, announced on Saturday that one of the four Canadians isolating in the province after disembarking the MV Hondius ship earlier this month received a 'presumptive positive' test. She said the unidentified individual is part of a couple in their 70s from the Yukon who have been isolating since they returned to the country on May 10, and developed 'mild symptoms' on Thursday including a fever and a headache.
A test on the individual late Friday evening then came back positive for the Andes strain of hantavirus, which was later confirmed with further testing by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, according to the CBC. The other person also had 'minor symptoms' when they were assessed, but tested negative for the virus.
'The patient is stable, the symptoms remain mild at this point and they are still in hospital in isolation, being monitored and receiving care as needed by the healthcare worker team in the hospital,' Dr Henry said. At the same time, she said, a third cruise passenger who was in isolation in British Columbia, also in their 70s, has been transferred to a hospital for assessment and testing out of an abundance of caution.
Meanwhile, a fourth person from British Columbia in their 50s who lives abroad, continues to isolate at home. A passenger waves inside a bus after being disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10 According to the ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions, no one on board is experiencing any symptoms Passengers are screened with a temperature scanner before boarding a plane bound for Canada, after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10 Read MoreEXCLUSIVE I survived the rat virus spreading on the cruise ship.
I saw horrors before coming back from brink Those in the hospital are being held in negative pressure rooms, said Dr Reka Gustafson, chief medical health officer for the Island Health Authority, as she assured the public that the two hospitals are prepared. Henry has also noted that the province had infection control precautions in place from the moment the four cruise passengers arrived in British Columbia.
'I'm confident there's no additional risk to anybody else outside of the people who've been caring for these individuals,' she said. 'They have no contact with the public, and health care workers are using well-established protocols that they know well, that are able to protect them, to protect the other patients in the health care facility, and visitors as well.
' The Public Health Agency of Canada echoed that statement, saying the overall risk to the general population from the Andes hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship remains low. 'All confirmed cases to date have been passengers or crew on the MV Hondius cruise ship,' the agency said in a statement. 'Given the severity of this virus, we are taking a precautionary approach to ensure Canadians are protected. '
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