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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — The cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has docked at the Dutch port of Rotterdam for disinfection, wrapping
up a troubled journey that put international health authorities on alert. The MV Hondius was still carrying 25 crew members and two medical personnel as it reached Europe's largest port on Monday morning, after all the passengers disembarked already.
An Associated Press journalist saw people board the boat via pier wearing white hazardous materials suits. A short distance from where the ship docked, authorities had set up white containers along the water in between a line of windmills.The crew will now go into quarantine, with those who cannot be immediately repatriated spending their time in quarantine in these containers.
“Luckily so far the crew has suffered no symptoms,” Yvonne van Duijnhoven, the director of public health in Rotterdam told The Associated Press. Crew members will be tested upon arrival and then weekly for the duration of their quarantine.
The outbreak on the ship has reached at least 11 cases, nine of which have been confirmed. Three passengers have died, including a Dutch couple who health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America. The Public Health Agency of Canada said one of the four Canadians in isolation after leaving the ship had tested positive Sunday and it would share information on the case with the World Health Organization.
After everyone on board has disembarked, the ship will be decontaminated based on Dutch public health guidelines, a process that will take about three days, according to van Duijnhoven.
She stressed that the risk to the public is very low. “We have very strict protocols to prevent virus going from the ship towards the outside world,” she said. Public health officials will inspect the vessel before it is allowed to sail again.
The MV Hondius has spent the past six days sailing from the Canary Islands, where the remaining passengers were escorted off the vessel by personnel in full-body protective gear and boarded flights to more than 20 countries to enter quarantine.
The port was asked by Dutch authorities last week if they could take in the vessel. 'I think it’s unacceptable to say no, you’re not welcome in the biggest port of Europe,' the port’s harbormaster, René de Vries, told AP.
Some two dozen passengers and crew are already in quarantine in the Netherlands after arriving in the country on a series of flights over the previous two weeks.
The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius is the first known case on a cruise ship.
Eighteen Americans are currently under observation at specialized healthcare facilities in the United States designed to treat people with dangerous infectious diseases.
The Dutch company that owns the cruise ship said it doesn’t foresee any changes to its operations. It has an Arctic cruise setting sail from Keflavik, Iceland, on May 29.
France’s Pasteur Institute said on Saturday it has fully sequenced the Andes virus detected in a French passenger from the MV Hondius and found that it matched viruses already known in South America, with no evidence so far of new characteristics that would make it more transmissible or more dangerous.
