The Hondius departed Granadilla, Tenerife, at 19:00 local time on May 11 and is now underway to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with an expected arrival on the evening of May 17, according to Oceanwide Expeditions.
The total number of individuals repatriated to their home countries and the Netherlands was 122, consisting of 35 crew and 87 passengers, Oceanwide Expeditions said.
The vessel has 25 crew members onboard.
In addition, two medical professionals from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment accompany the ship to conduct ongoing medical monitoring during the voyage, bringing the total of individuals currently aboard to 27.
The body of a German passenger who passed away onboard on May 2 remains with the vessel. Oceanwide Expeditions will coordinate with relevant authorities to ensure repatriation upon arrival in the Netherlands.
All passengers’ luggage remains onboard and will be returned upon the vessel’s arrival in Rotterdam.
The Hondius will undergo sanitation upon arrival, with cleaning protocols still being determined in consultation with the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the WHO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health, Rotterdam Port Health Authority and other relevant bodies.
All remaining crew onboard will comply with medical screening and quarantine conditions in place by Dutch authorities.
A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from the vessel is in very critical condition, according to the Irish Times.
The woman had reported symptoms to doctors onboard but was told it was probably just anxiety, Spanish Health Minister Javier Padilla Bernáldez said.
The woman had been suffering flu-like symptoms but they appeared to be getting better and she did not have a fever, Padilla said.
“They were not thinking that these symptoms were compatible with hantavirus,” Padilla said. “What she was telling them was an episode of coughing some days ago that had disappeared, and what she was having at that moment was kind of like stress or anxiety or nervousness.”
French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said the woman was one of five French passengers who left the ship over the weekend and is now in a specialist infectious disease hospital, according to Time magazine.
Contact tracing has identified 22 people in France who were on the cruise ship or who traveled on planes with people who turned out to be infected, the Irish Times reported.
The WHO has warned that additional cases may emerge among evacuated passengers because hantavirus has a very long incubation period of up to eight weeks after exposure.
“We risk seeing new cases in the coming days or weeks,” said Olivier le Polain, an epidemiologist at the WHO, according to the Irish Times.
Three passengers have died following the outbreak. The World Health Organization has confirmed that seven cases, including two laboratory-confirmed hantavirus cases and five suspected cases, have been identified.
The vessel departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and followed an itinerary across the South Atlantic with stops including Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena and Ascension Island.
