Hantavirus: Evacuated passengers begin returning home

We're going to bring these updates to a halt now, after several days keeping an eye on the MV Hondius and its passengers. 

Most passengers have disembarked and are being flown home or to suitable locations for monitoring or if necessary treatment. 

Although the ship is bound for the Netherlands, it will dock briefly once more in the Canary Islands on Monday evening because of adverse weather. 

The ship's captain, Jan Dobrogowski, issued a video message on Monday praising passengers and crew alike for their courage and perserverance. He also urged others to respect their privacy after a very public ordeal. 

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

Given the hantavirus' potentially long incubation time, the monitoring process for passengers and crew could well take some time yet. We will revisit the story of the outbreak as and when it merits it of course, but for now we'll halt these updates on the process of bringing the ship and its passengers back towards dry land.

Passengers evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship are returning to their home countries, some with symptoms and many without.

What happens to these people and what is being done to contain the spread?

Read DW's full report on what is being done to prevent the hantavirus outbreak from spreading.

The final 22 evacuees from the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius are due to fly from Tenerife to the Netherlands on Monday afternoon, capping off a complex repatriation operation from the Canary Islands carried out by Spanish authorities.

"From the start, all the measures adopted have aimed at cutting the possible chains of transmission ... all measures for prevention and control of transmission have been applied," the Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement, after French and US authorities have reported positive tests from one each of their evacuees.

Medical teams escorted the passengers to an airport on Tenerife under close supervision and following thorough sanitary checks, Spanish health authorities said.

The US case was asymptomatic, and a French patient began showing symptoms on the flight home.

The ministry said the test of the US patient for them was "not conclusive," adding that US officials considered the result taken in an earlier test from Cape Verde where the ship stopped before reaching Spain to be a "weak positive."

It added that the French patient "started to feel unwell during the flight and not while she was on the ship."

French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday that the woman's health had worsened overnight while in the hospital.

The Dutch-flagged  MV Hondius is due to set sail for the Netherlands later Monday evening carrying a skeleton crew. 

The captain of the vessel hailed the crew and passengers for their "patience, discipline and friendliness" during the ordeal in the Atlantic.

"These past few weeks have been extremely challenging to us all," Captain Jan Dobrogowski said in a video message published by the cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

Four German passengers who were aboard the Hondius arrived at a hospital in Frankfurt on Monday for further examination and observation before being moved into quarantine in their home states, a spokesperson said.

So far, there were "no indications of illness," Timo Wolf, head of the special ​isolation ward for highly pathogenic infections in Frankfurt, said in a statement.

After examination, the passengers will be moved to their respective home states to quarantine for 45 days.

The German passengers were transferred by ground to Frankfurt from Eindhoven airport in the Netherlands after arriving on an evacuation flight from Tenerife on Sunday. 

Other passengers on Sunday's flight included Dutch, Belgian and Greek nationals, all of who were asymptomatic before departure, according to the Spanish Health Ministry.

Berlin's health authorities said one, asymptomatic, German passenger is due to be taken to Berlin's Charite hospital. Another person with no symptoms is due to into home quarantine in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, officials there said.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are six confirmed cases of hantavirus and two suspected cases from the Hondius cruise ship. Three people died from the virus — an elderly couple from the Netherlands and a German woman

The WHO believes that the chain of infection began with the Dutch couple, who may have been infected in Argentina before boarding the ship.

A French woman who returned to Paris on Sunday after being evacuated from the MV Hondius has tested positive for hantavirus after developing symptoms on the flight home, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday.

Rist added the woman's condition had worsened in the hospital overnight. 

The woman was among five French passengers repatriated on Sunday after the vessel anchored off the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Atlantic. Personnel wearing protective gear and breathing masks had escorted the passengers from the vessel to shore.

Passengers from 20 countries are being repatriated, in an effort that was continuing on Monday.

The World Health Organization has the health risk to the broader public remains low, but has recommended close monitoring of the those who were evacuated from the ship.

Many countries have quarantined the returnees. 

One of the 17 US passengers evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship has tested positive for hantavirus. 

That's according to a spokesperson from Nebraska Medicine. 

Passengers are expected to arrive in Nebraska on Monday morning after being evacuated on a reparation flight from Spain's Canary Islands. 

"One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival," Kayla Thomas said.

This person had "tested positive for the virus but [does] not have symptoms," she said.

The other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit, managed by Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 

The 20-bed facility is the only federally-funded quarantine unit in the United States. 

According to the unit's website, the rooms have "individual negative air pressure systems, are single occupancy with en suite bathroom facilities, and contain exercise equipment and Wifi connectivity for patients requiring longer stays."

Other US passengers won't necessarily be quarantined

Earlier, a top US health official said that passengers won't necessarily be quarantined.

After being taken to the specialized center in Nebraska, "we're going to interview them and assess them for risk ... if they have been in close contact with somebody who was symptomatic," Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told CNN on Sunday.

Following this assessment, passengers will be allowed "to stay in Nebraska if they'd like, or if they want to go back home, and their home situation allows it, to safely drive them home without exposing other people on the way," Bhattacharya said.

In either case, passengers will remain under observation for several weeks by health authorities, he said.

Bhattacharya said the same protocol was followed during a 2018 outbreak "of this exact strain of the hantavirus," which was successfully contained.

Passengers exposed to a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship have been evacuated to receive medical attention. DW's Nicole Ris and molecular biologist Kai Kupferschmidt have more. 

A total of 94 passengers and crew members have been evacuated from the Hondius cruise ship affected by a deadly hantavirus outbreak. 

Individuals from 19 countries left the Canary island on eight special aircraft, Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia told journalists in Tenerife on Sunday.

According to Garcia, 34 people, most of them crew members, will remain on board and head to the Netherlands aboard the Hondius, which sails under a Dutch flag, on Monday.

The ship is to travel to the port of Rotterdam, where it will undergo disinfection. The body of a German passenger, who died on the ship, will be removed upon arrival there. 

Here's an overview of what we know about some of the evacuations flights: 

• France: French passengers have landed in Paris, where they were met by emergency vehicles. One of the French passengers developed symptoms during the evacuation flight. All are to be put into strict isolation. 
• United Kingdom: Authorities have said passengers will be hospitalized for 72 hours of quarantine, followed by six weeks of self-isolation.
• Netherlands: 26 people were evacuated to the Dutch city of Eindhoven. These included eight Dutch citizens, as well as people from India, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, Guatemala, the Philippines and Montenegro, according to the Dutch Foreign Ministry. The Dutch citizens were being taken home by medical transport and will self-quarantine for six weeks. Local health services were arranging quarantine locations for others.
• Norway: Norway sent an ambulance plane to the island with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.
• United States: Americans will first be flown to the University of Nebraska, which has a quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, told US broadcaster CNN. 
• Australia: Australia is sending a plane to evacuate its citizens and others from nearby countries, such as New Zealand. This is expected to arrive in Tenerife on Monday. 

Dozens of passengers left the MV Hondius before the deaths of two people were linked to the hantavirus's Andes strain. Epidemiologist, Professor Anne Rimoin, discusses how individuals who may have been exposed are being traced. 

Nearly four weeks after a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship, an international evacuation operation is under way. Authorities from 23 countries are coordinating the evacuation as health agencies enforce strict precautions.

A transport plane from Tenerife to Eindhoven military airport landed late on Sunday. 

It was carrying 26 passengers or crew from the MV Hondius, including eight Dutch nationals and four Germans. 

Specialists, including from the Red Cross, were awaiting the plane's arrvial. The four Germans were set to be transported to Frankfurt. 

"Relieved that they are safely on their way after a period of uncertainty and that the other passengers are travelling home via other routes," Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen had said soon after the plane took off, thanking Spain and other partners for their cooperation.

According to authorities in the Netherlands all the passengers will be quarantined for around six weeks. 

Netherlands residents would be transported home for isolation while citizens of other countries without alternative options would be taken to a "quarantine location," the Foreign Ministry said. 

Hantavirus can have a rather long incubation period, extending to or even beyond six weeks in exceptional cases, though typically symptoms will present faster than that.

Spanish civil protection chief Virginia Barcones told local radio that citizens of Belgium, Greece, Guatemala and Argentina were on board, as well as the four Germans. 

The four remaining German passengers from the MV Hondius will be placed in quarantine on their return, the Health Ministry of the state of Brandenburg said on Sunday. 

It said health officials had arranged for specialists to meet them upon their arrival in the Netherlands at the military airport in Eindhoven, and then transport them to Frankfurt as a first step. 

All four are thought to be asymptomatic. But should any of them display symptoms in transport, they would be taken to the Düsseldorf University Hospital, where one 65-year-old woman is already on the infectious diseases ward.

She had close contact with one of the patients on board who died, and was flown off the cruise ship before it reached Tenerife. 

One of the five French nationals repatriated on Sunday demonstrated symptoms during the flight, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. 

"One of them showed symptoms in the repatriation plane," Lecornu wrote online. "Also, these five passengers have been immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice." 

Lecornu said they were receiving medical attention and would have tests and a medical check-up. 

Lecornu said that later on Sunday evening he would implement a temporary decree authorizing isolation measures for contact cases to protect the wider public, saying the Health Ministry would comment further later. 

Addressing the faithful from St. Peter's Square in the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV praised the people of Spain's Canary Islands, which includes Tenerife, for allowing the cruise ship Hondius into one if its ports after a hantavirus outbreak.

"I would like to express my gratitude for the hospitality that characterizes the people of the Canary Islands, and for taking in the cruise ship Hondius with the hantavirus patients,” Leo said after his midday prayer on Sunday.

Initially, regional officials in the Canary Islands refused to let the ship enter its ports, citing public safety. These objections have been overruled by the central government in Madrid.

The pope is due to visit Tenerife in just over a month and attend an event in the Santa Cruz port.

The plane carrying 13 passengers and one crew member evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship  has left the Tenerife airport and is flying towards Madrid, where the group is to be placed in quarantine.

This is the first out of several evacuation flights expected today and tomorrow.

Cruise shop MV Hondius was affected by a hantavirus outbreak after leaving Argentina. Earlier today, it reached the Spanish island of Tenerife with more than 140 from 20 nations aboard, triggering an international evacuation effort.