The hantavirus-hit MV Hondius has departed the Spanish island of Tenerife bound for the Netherlands after the final six passengers and some of the crew left the ship.
The cruise ship set off from the Canary Island port of Granadillo with a 25-strong crew and two medical staff on board, and is expected to arrive in Rotterdam on Sunday evening, according to cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
Still on board the vessel are 17 crew from the Philippines, four Dutch (two crew and the two medical staff), four from Ukraine and one each from Russia and Poland.
The operator confirmed that the ship would undergo disinfection procedures upon arrival in Rotterdam.
Earlier today Spain's health minister had said two final evacuation flights carrying passengers of the MV Hondius, one from Australia and another from the Netherlands, would depart during the afternoon.
"In the end, the flight to the Netherlands will also take the citizens who are on the Australian flight," Monica Garcia said.
She added that Australian authorities "can't guarantee the arrival on time" of their plane.
The captain of the MV Hondius Jan Dobrogowski from the Netherlands, said in a video posted on Oceanwide Expeditions' website that the past weeks had been "extremely challenging".
He added: "I could not imagine sailing through these circumstances with a better group of people, guests and crew alike."
Staff at Dutch hospital quarantining
Twelve staff members at a Dutch hospital treating a hantavirus-positive evacuee from the Hondius are in preventative quarantine after procedures were not followed correctly, the hospital said today.
Procedural errors were made in taking blood and disposing of the patient's urine, said the Radboud University Hospital in the east of the country in a statement.
"Due to these circumstances, twelve employees are going into preventive quarantine for six weeks as a precaution, even though the risk of infection is low," added the hospital.
Eight people no longer on the MV Hondius have fallen ill, according to a World Health Organization tally from Friday, of which six are confirmed to have contracted the virus. Three people have died, a Dutch couple and a German national.
Ireland, Spain, France and the US evacuated their citizens from the MV Hondius yesterday, which had anchored near Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, officials said.
The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers, while experts have urged calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic that this virus was far less contagious and posed little risk.
The virus, usually spread by rodents but transmissible person-to-person in rare close contact, was first detected on 2 May in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a British man who fell ill, 21 days after another passenger had died.
He is said to be clinically improving, according to a South African health ministry spokesperson today.
After the outbreak was detected, the vessel left for Spain last Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde, having sailed from the southern tip of Argentina across the South Atlantic to the Cape Verde islands.
US, French nationals positive for hantavirus after evacuation
Meanwhile, official have said an American national and a French woman evacuated from the cruise ship have tested positive.
The French woman, one of five passengers from France flown back from the MV Hondius and placed in isolation in Paris, started to feel unwell last night, and "tests came back positive", said Health Minister Stephanie Rist.
The four other passengers tested negative but will be re-tested, Ms Rist told France Inter radio, adding that so far French authorities have traced 22 contact cases.
The US health department said one of 17 American citizens repatriated from the cruise ship also tested positive for the virus.
Watch: US citizens from hantavirus-hit cruise ship evacuated from Canary Islands
"One passenger currently has mild symptoms and another passenger tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus," the US Department of Health and Human Services said.
Both passengers travelled in the plane's biocontainment units "out of an abundance of caution," it said.
The US passengers evacuated from the Spanish Canary Islands, where the ship made a stop, were being taken to a specialised centre in the rural state of Nebraska. The person with mild symptoms was to be taken to a second centre.
Spain says it took 'all measures' to stop hantavirus, after positive tests
Spain said it took "all measures" to prevent hantavirus spreading from the evacuees on the ship.
"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.
It said the French patient "started to feel unwell during the flight and not while she was on the ship".
The US citizen who tested positive "did not show symptoms when they were in Cape Verde", where the MV Hondius stopped before reaching the Canary Islands, the ministry said.
"However, the US authorities have decided to treat the case as positive. For that reason, they requested a separate evacuation, which was carried out in a separate boat."
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