Dutch Hondius Passengers Will Spend Six Weeks in Home Quarantine on Return

All Dutch passengers and crew members of the cruise ship MV Hondius will spend six weeks in home quarantine after returning to the Netherlands, health minister Sophie Hermans and foreign minister Tom Berendsen wrote to parliament on Friday. The measure follows the suspected hantavirus outbreak on board, which has so far killed three people, including a Dutch couple.

Rentals in the Netherlands

Signaal tracks the Dutch rental market and notifies you the moment something matches your search. Be first to apply.

Why six weeks

The six-week period reflects the long incubation time of the Andes variant of the hantavirus, which has now been confirmed in several patients linked to the ship. The Dutch public health institute RIVM has advised the government to follow the guidelines of the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), which recommend a six-week quarantine starting from the last "risky contact."

According to the RIVM, the Andes virus has a mortality rate of between 20 and 35 percent in those who develop the disease. It is also, as far as is known, the only hantavirus that can spread directly between humans, and infection can happen before symptoms appear.

People in quarantine will be monitored and supported by their local public health service, the GGD. If they develop symptoms, they will be referred to an academic hospital for further care.

A new entry on the A-list

To make the home quarantine legally enforceable, the government has added the Andes variant of the hantavirus to "group A2" on the Dutch list of infectious diseases, which obliges doctors and laboratories to report suspected cases to the GGD. The disease has not been placed in the most serious category, A1, where Covid-19 sat for much of the pandemic. According to the RIVM, the Andes virus is unlikely to cause a pandemic, since it does not normally spread easily between people.

Speaking at her weekly press conference, Hermans, who is the new VVD health minister, stressed that "the chance of catching hantavirus is very small." The virus mostly spreads through contact with the droppings, urine or saliva of rats and mice. Person-to-person spread is only possible after prolonged, close contact, she said. "It is a very different virus from coronavirus, which is many times more contagious."

The ship arrives in Tenerife on Sunday

The MV Hondius is currently sailing from Cape Verde to the Spanish island of Tenerife and is expected to dock at the Granadilla harbour around midday on Sunday, 10 May. According to the Dutch foreign ministry, around 147 passengers and crew are still on board, none of them currently showing symptoms. About 13 of those on board are Dutch nationals; in total, 16 Dutch citizens, 11 passengers and 5 crew members, originally boarded the ship. The body of the German woman who died on 2 May is also still on board.

Spanish authorities have agreed to take the ship in. They will examine passengers and crew on board, working with the doctors and epidemiologists already accompanying the vessel. The Dutch defence ministry has sent a military doctor as part of that team.

Foreign passengers without symptoms will be flown back to their home countries from Tenerife. Spanish passengers will be transferred to a military hospital in Madrid for around 45 days of quarantine. Spanish health minister Mónica García said that all foreign nationals will be repatriated, even those with symptoms, unless they need urgent hospital care.

The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has said the ship will not actually moor at the harbour but will instead anchor offshore. Passengers will be transferred to land by another vessel and taken directly to the airport, to keep their time on the islands as short as possible.

Possibly some non-Dutch nationals to the Netherlands

Because the Hondius sails under a Dutch flag, the Dutch ministers said it is possible that some passengers and crew of other nationalities will also be brought to the Netherlands for the time being. They too would go into the same six-week home quarantine, with the same support from the GGD. The RIVM has advised that this kind of arrangement "is feasible."

Where the patients are now

The home quarantine is the next chapter in a story that has stretched across continents over the past two weeks. The Dutch passenger evacuated this week is being treated at Radboudumc in Nijmegen and the British crew member at the LUMC in Leiden, both having tested positive for the Andes variant. The 65-year-old German woman who was evacuated to the UKD hospital in Düsseldorf is a separate patient from the German woman who died on board, whose body remains on the Hondius. A Swiss man who left the cruise earlier is being treated in Zurich, also confirmed positive.

According to the WHO's update on Friday, six cases of the Andes variant have now been laboratory-confirmed, including the three who died, and two more cases are still suspected. The KLM flight attendant from Haarlem who had been admitted to Amsterdam UMC for monitoring has tested negative for hantavirus, the WHO confirmed on Friday evening. Two other people from the same KLM flight from Johannesburg who had developed symptoms have also tested negative.

For now, the focus shifts to Tenerife and the next stage: getting the remaining passengers safely off the ship, into a clear medical pathway, and, in the case of the Dutch nationals, into six quiet weeks at home.