{"id":13499,"date":"2026-05-18T13:49:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/13499\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T13:49:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:49:05","slug":"hantavirus-hit-cruise-ship-arrives-in-rotterdam-for-disinfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/13499\/","title":{"rendered":"Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Rotterdam for disinfection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius docked in Rotterdam on Monday, where Dutch authorities are preparing to quarantine the remaining crew and medical staff on board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-gmr-5\">Reuters<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise was to be disinfected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/canada\/article-canada-hantavirus-case-mv-hondius-who\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">B.C. hantavirus case confirmed in laboratory test<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Including the three deaths, there have been eight confirmed and two probable cases on board, according to WHO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">There is no specific treatment for infection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The WHO insists the wider threat to public health remains low and there is no comparison with the COVID epidemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cThere is no risk for Rotterdam and no risk in that sense,\u201d said Tjalling Leenstra, head of the Dutch co-ordination centre for communicable disease control at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">All those exposed are under monitoring and quarantine, he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/opinion\/article-canada-not-ready-viral-outbreak-covid-19-inquiry\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Opinion: Canada\u2019s not ready for the next viral outbreak. We didn\u2019t even bother with an inquiry on the last one<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Cleaning of the vessel by a specialized company could take up to a week, RIVM said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cThey wear protective clothing and clean all surfaces in the ship, including the ventilation systems, and each room is assessed individually,\u201d said RIVM spokesperson Coen Berends, noting that cabins of people who tested positive would be considered high-risk areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The outbreak involves the so-called Andes virus, a strain which has circulated in Argentina and Chile for decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Other crew, passengers and people in contact with them have also been quarantined in several other countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius docked in Rotterdam on Monday, where Dutch authorities are preparing to quarantine&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2191,2181,2192,2174,2172,2193,1256,2171,2186,2187,2183,2173,2170,74,1425,206,2185,2180,2204,2175,2176,587,2182,696,155,2194,2178,2199,2200,2202,2197,2201,2195,2198,2177,2189,2190,802,2188,2196,41,893,670,305,2184,2179,831,2203],"class_list":["post-13499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rotterdam","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-rotterdam","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}