OMAHA, Neb. — The last remaining passengers from the MV Hondius, a cruise ship tied to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, disembarked from the Canary Islands on Monday and boarded flights to more than 20 countries to enter quarantine monitoring, the World Health Organization said.
The WHO said the episode left three passengers dead, and that six people with confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases were quarantined. WHO spokesperson Sarah Tyler said the lab results for an American who tested positive were inconclusive.
The departures followed the ship’s anchoring in the Canary Islands, with passengers beginning to fly home Sunday on military and government planes. Personnel wearing full-body protective gear and breathing masks escorted travelers from ship to shore in Tenerife before the effort concluded on Monday, according to the report.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in comments carried with the outbreak coverage that if travelers had remained longer on the ship, the situation could have been difficult. He also urged people in the home countries of returning passengers to understand that the risk is low, saying “there is nothing to fear, the risk is low, this is not another COVID.”
French officials said one woman tested positive and was in intensive care in stable condition at a Paris hospital, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Monday. Lecornu said four French passengers who returned Sunday tested negative but remained in isolation at the same hospital. The report also said South African health authorities said a British man in Johannesburg hospitalized with hantavirus was gradually improving after being evacuated from the ship on April 27.
In the United States, U.S. health officials said 16 American passengers arriving early Monday were taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which the report described as having a federally funded quarantine facility and a biocontainment unit for people with highly infectious diseases. Officials said the assessments were aimed at determining whether passengers had close contact with any symptomatic people and calculating their risk levels for spreading the virus.
The report said an American passenger who tested positive on the cruise ship was taken to the Omaha campus biocontainment unit and would be tested again. Dr. Angela Hewlett, the unit’s medical director, said the passenger “is doing well and not having symptoms at this time.” Dr. Michael Wadman, the quarantine unit’s medical director, said the other passengers taken to Nebraska were monitored in quarantine for several days and arrived “in good shape, good spirits.”
Additional U.S. cases were handled at other facilities: the report said two American passengers, a couple, arrived Monday at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where one had mild symptoms and would be tested for hantavirus. The report also quoted Dr. Brendan Jackson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as saying, “It doesn’t necessarily mean, just because someone has symptoms, that they’re going to end up having this illness.”
Health officials said hantavirus typically spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. The Andes virus identified in this outbreak “may be able to spread between people in rare cases,” and symptoms can show between one and eight weeks after exposure, according to the report. Tedros told countries they could not enforce WHO guidance and said returning passengers should stay in quarantine for 42 days, either at home or in other facilities.
The report noted that Oceanwide Expeditions, which owns and operates the Hondius, said 25 crew and two medical professionals remained on board Monday as the ship departed the Canary Islands. The report also said the ship was expected to arrive in Rotterdam on Sunday, with the voyage that began in Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 and included the death of a Dutch passenger on April 11. It wasn’t until early May that WHO said it was reacting to a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the ship, by then off Cape Verde, according to the report.
In a video message Monday, the ship’s captain, Jan Dobrogowski, praised passengers and crew for their “courage and perseverance” and called for respect for passengers’ privacy. He said, “I could not imagine sailing through these circumstances with a better group of people, guests and crew alike.”
The report also said some public health experts accused the U.S. government of being slow to respond. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rejected the notion, saying in remarks carried with the report, “We have this under control,” and “we’re not worried about it.”