The Dutch-flagged vessel is expected to take six days to sail to Rotterdam and provisionally arrive on the evening of 17 May. Exact procedures upon arrival remain under discussion, the ship’s operator Oceanwide Expedition said, but the vessel will undergo sanitation.
The final six passengers – four Australians, one Briton and one New Zealander – and some crew members left the ship on Monday.
Overall, 122 passengers and crew of the MV Hondius have been repatriated to the Netherlands and their home countries on government-chartered flights over the past few days.
As of Monday evening, Oceanwide Expeditions said 27 people remained on board the ship – 25 crew members and two medical staff.
These included 17 people from the Philippines, four from the Netherlands (including the two medical staff), four from Ukraine, one from Russia and one from Poland.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the Ukrainians on board would help with the ship’s transfer to the Netherlands and would quarantine at a medical facility on arrival. It added that they had shown no signs of illness.
Seventeen Filipino crew members arrived in the Netherlands on Tuesday morning, according to the Philippine Embassy.
Spain’s health ministry earlier said one Spaniard who is quarantining in Madrid after being evacuated from the vessel had also provisionally tested positive for hantavirus on Monday.
French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said a woman was isolating in Paris and that her health was deteriorating, with 22 contacts being traced.
In a separate development, the US health department said a second American national on Sunday’s repatriation flight had also shown mild symptoms, adding that both passengers had travelled back in “biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution”.
Two British nationals with confirmed cases are currently being treated in the Netherlands and South Africa.