Australians and a New Zealander are among the final passengers being evacuated from the stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after a deadly hantavirus outbreak left three people dead and triggered an international health response.
More than 90 passengers from the Dutch-flagged vessel have already been repatriated from Spain’s Canary Islands after the ship arrived off Tenerife, with countries including France, Germany, Ireland, the US, the UK and the Netherlands organising special evacuation flights.
As per ABC, a group of four Australians, one Australian permanent resident and one New Zealander were forced to remain on board longer while awaiting a repatriation flight from Australia.
The outbreak has already claimed the lives of a Dutch couple and a German woman, while several other passengers who disembarked earlier in the voyage later tested positive for hantavirus.
French authorities confirmed one evacuated passenger began showing symptoms during a repatriation flight to Paris and was immediately placed in strict isolation.
The cruise ship had departed Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 for a trans-Atlantic expedition to Cape Verde before the outbreak emerged.
The World Health Organization believes the first infection likely occurred before the voyage began, followed by human-to-human transmission on board.
The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the risk to the public is low.
Passengers wearing protective blue medical suits were ferried from the ship to Tenerife by small boats before being transported under heavy security in military buses to waiting aircraft.
It is further reported that the health officials stressed all remaining passengers are asymptomatic and insisted the risk to the wider public remains low.
US Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Jay Bhattacharya also urged calm, saying:
“This is not Covid.”
Authorities in multiple countries are now monitoring evacuated passengers for weeks due to the virus’s lengthy incubation period. The WHO has recommended up to 42 days of quarantine or health monitoring following exposure.
Once evacuations are complete, a skeleton crew of about 30 people will sail the MV Hondius back to the Netherlands.
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