Last passengers from hantavirus-hit ship evacuated; American tests positive

US officials say 18 Americans are being quarantined and monitored for symptoms, as WHO insists risk to public remains low.

The last two evacuation planes carrying passengers and crew from the cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak have landed in the Netherlands, as a repatriated US passenger tested positive for the respiratory infection.

The two planes carried 28 evacuees from the MV Hondius, which had been docked in the Canary Islands, including six passengers and 19 crew members, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.

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The passengers – four from Australia, one from New Zealand, and one British resident of Australia – are expected to stay in a quarantine facility near the Eindhoven airbase before they are repatriated.

Their arrival caps a complex operation in which 94 people have been evacuated and repatriated to some 20 countries to enter a period of quarantine. It comes 41 days after the MV Hondius set off from southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive test result for the respiratory viral infection.

Three people – a Dutch ‌couple and a German national – have died since the outbreak of the hantavirus on the ship.

The strain involved, known as the Andes virus, is typically spread by rodents and is the only variant of hantavirus capable of limited person-to-person transmission.

One of 18 US passengers tests positive

Officials from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Monday that one of the 18 American passengers evacuated from the ship had tested positive in a biochemical unit in Nebraska.

The officials said the infected person was being monitored along with 15 others at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, while two others, a couple, are at Emory University Hospital in the city of Atlanta.

Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr expressed confidence in the US response to reporters at the White House.

“We had a CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] team at Tenerife [Spain]. We had aeroplanes ready to take the patients,” he said. “We have this under control, and we’re not worried about it.”

President Donald Trump, when asked about his administration’s handling of the hantavirus outbreak, said he thought it had been “fine”.

The MV Hondius left Argentina, where hantavirus is endemic, on April 1 for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Verde. The World Health Organization believes the first infection occurred before the start of the voyage, followed by transmission between people on board the vessel.

Authorities have said that the risk to the public from the virus, which generally requires prolonged close contact with someone infected to spread, remains low.

‘Not another COVID’

The World Health Organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at the port of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, sought to reassure the passengers and the public on Monday, saying that “there is nothing to fear. The risk is low. This is not another COVID.”

He said the ‌WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers.

As of Monday, the WHO said there were seven confirmed cases of the virus, and two other suspected cases – one who died before ⁠being tested, and one on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where no tests had been available.

It was not clear if the US passenger is included in the figure.

The confirmed cases also include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday. Her condition was deteriorating, French Minister of Health Stephanie Rist said.

Citizens of six countries have been affected.

The Hondius is now making its way from Tenerife to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where it will dock for disinfection. Still on board are 25 crew members and two medical staff, operator Oceanwide Expeditions said on Monday.

The vessel is also carrying the body of a German passenger who died during the voyage.

In a video shared on Monday by Oceanwide Expeditions, captain Jan Dobrogowski paid tribute to the “unity and quiet strength” of everyone on board and highlighted the “courage and selfless resolve” of the crew.

“I could not imagine sailing through these circumstances with a better group of people, guests and crew alike,” Dobrogowski said.