38 Filipinos in virus-hit cruise ship to undergo quarantine in Netherlands

THE Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Sunday evening said all 38 Filipino seafarers have tested negative for the hantavirus but will still undergo quarantine for six weeks in the Netherlands.

Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo J. Cacdac said the Filipino seafarers aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius, composed of 24 hotel workers and 14 deck and engine crew, are set to undergo quarantine in the Netherlands which would last for 42 days.

“We will provide financial assistance, action fund assistance as we always do to our returning seafarers, more particularly also in this case,” he said in a virtual briefing.

Mr. Cacdac said the DMW is closely working with the Department of Foreign Affairs for the monitoring of the situation of the crew. He said the families of the seafarers have been made aware of the situation, with the quarantine to be shouldered by the ship owner.

At the same briefing, Health Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa assured that the hantavirus will not be like COVID-19, noting that the former is not airborne and is transmitted through close contact.

The outbreak of the virus, usually spread by wild rodents but also transmittable person-to-person in rare cases of close contact, was first detected by health officials in Johannesburg on May 2 treating a British man who was taken into intensive care after disembarking the ship. That was some three weeks after the first passenger, the Dutchman, had died.

The luxury cruise ship left for Spain’s Canary Islands from the coast of Cape Verde on May 6 after Madrid agreed — at the request of both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union — to manage the evacuation of passengers.

The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers from the boat from May 10, its director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, told a briefing.

Health officials have urged calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this virus is far less contagious and poses little risk to the general population. — Kaela Patricia B. Gabriel with Reuters