The Hondius cruise ship, which has sparked global concern due to an outbreak of hantavirus on board, was allowed to return to sea on Saturday, after being duly cleaned and disinfected.
“From a public health point of view, there are no more obstacles to putting the Hondius ship into service,” Rotterdam’s municipal health agency announced on its website, following a final inspection on Friday.
During these checks, infection prevention experts “established that the Hondius had been cleaned effectively and that disinfection had been carried out in accordance with established guidelines,” the health body added.
For its part, the cruise line Oceanwide Expeditions, owner of the boat, specified this week that the boat would soon leave Rotterdam, once inspections were completed, and that it would resume its cruise program from June 13.
Neither vaccine nor treatment
The MV Hondius, which linked Ushuaïa in Argentina to the Cape Verde archipelago, saw its journey disrupted after the death of three of its passengers, due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare virus for which there is no vaccine or specific treatment.
The passengers were evacuated to Tenerife, on the Spanish Canary Islands, before being repatriated by plane to their respective countries. The Dutch-flagged boat then completed its journey on May 18 in Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, where the rest of its crew was placed in quarantine.
The WHO currently counts 13 confirmed or probable cases linked to this episode, including 3 deaths.
