By Charlotte Van Campenhout
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, May 18 (Reuters) – A luxury polar explorer at the centre of an outbreak of hantavirus docked at the Dutch port of Rotterdam on Monday, where authorities were quarantining the last 27 people to disembark and planned to cremate a German who died.
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise was to be disinfected.
It had been carrying around 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of severe respiratory illnesses was first reported to the World Health Organization on May 2.
Three people have died. The bodies of a Dutch couple have been repatriated, while a German victim was to be cremated in the Netherlands with her ashes then sent home.
Including the three deaths, there have been eight confirmed and two probable cases on board, according to WHO.
Hantavirus is primarily spread by rodents but can be transmitted between people in rare cases and after prolonged, close contact. Incubation can last about six weeks.
There is no specific treatment for infection.
The WHO insists the wider threat to public health remains low and there is no comparison with the COVID epidemic.
“There is no risk for Rotterdam and no risk in that sense,” said Tjalling Leenstra, head of the Dutch coordination centre for communicable disease control at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
All those exposed are under monitoring and quarantine, he added.
The vessel, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, had been stranded off Cape Verde, its intended final destination, earlier this month after authorities barred remaining passengers from going ashore.
The WHO and EU asked Spain to manage the evacuation at the Canary Islands, after which the ship departed for Rotterdam with a skeleton crew of 25 people and two additional medical staff.
Two Dutch crew members were going home for quarantine, with other mainly Filipino staff to quarantine in mobile home units in the Rotterdam area, said Yvonne van Duijnhoven, director of the GGD Rotterdam-Rijnmond municipal health service.
Cleaning of the vessel by a specialized company could take up to a week, RIVM said.
“They wear protective clothing and clean all surfaces in the ship, including the ventilation systems, and each room is assessed individually,” said RIVM spokesperson Coen Berends, noting that cabins of people who tested positive would be considered high-risk areas.
The outbreak involves the so-called Andes virus, a strain which has circulated in Argentina and Chile for decades.
Other crew, passengers and people in contact with them have also been quarantined in several other countries.
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Bart Meijer in Rotterdam; Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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