Hantavirus-hit Cruise Ship Evacuations Conclude As Captain Praises Crew And Passengers

Spain: The captain of the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, praised passengers and crew for their patience and discipline as evacuations drew to a close on Monday.

Captain Jan Dobrogowski said in a video that the past weeks had been “extremely challenging” and that he could not have imagined “a better group of people, guests and crew alike” to navigate the situation.

The remaining 28 people on board were preparing to disembark the vessel, which has been anchored near Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. They were due to be transferred by small boats to the island and flown to the Netherlands for quarantine.

The ship, a polar expedition vessel, is also expected to travel to the Netherlands with 26 crew members for disinfection, according to health authorities.

The evacuation operation has resulted in 94 people being repatriated to their home countries, 41 days after the ship departed from southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive test was reported.

Three people have died in the outbreak — a Dutch couple and a German national.

The World Health Organization said nine cases have been reported, including seven confirmed infections of the Andes strain of hantavirus.

Since the ship docked, additional cases have emerged, including a French passenger whose condition is deteriorating and a U.S. passenger who tested mildly positive, while another showed mild symptoms.

Spanish authorities questioned the U.S. test result, describing it as inconclusive, and maintained that passengers were asymptomatic while on board. They also said no blanket PCR testing was conducted due to a lack of capacity and epidemiological necessity.

Health officials stressed that hantavirus is generally spread by rodents and only rarely transmitted between humans, adding that the risk to the wider public remains low and that the outbreak does not pose a threat similar to COVID-19.