Crew and passengers on the Paul Gauguin cruise ship have all tested negative for Covid-19, after one passenger was found to have the virus at the weekend.
A 22-year-old woman who tested positive for Covid-19 immediately disembarked from the 332-passenger ship on August 2.
The 11-day round trip from Tahiti had departed on July 29 but has been cancelled.
The remaining passengers will be able to disembark and begin a seven-day quarantine period – either at home for local residents or in accommodation for non-residents.
French Polynesia authorities will be in daily contact with those in quarantine to check their health and compliance with containment measures.
At the end of quarantine, everyone will be tested again “in order not to take any risk”, according to a statement from the Tahiti tourism authority.
The statement added: “The health protocol implemented and the early measures applied by the cruise liner made it possible to rapidly detect and isolate the confirmed case of Covid-19, limiting the chain of transmission aboard the ship.
“Moving forward, this health protocol will be reinforced with the obligation for all cruise passengers to carry out a self-test before boarding the ship.”
The infected passenger was asymptomatic and had tested negative before her departure from the US.
Her second test was carried out on board, on August 1, as a self-sampling and was found to be positive.
The passenger and her mother disembarked “under sanitary corridor” and went to a specially provided hotel.
The Paul Gauguin had resumed sailing on July 18 for local residents and on July 29 for international passengers. French Polynesia opened its borders to all nationalities on July 15.
Meanwhile, Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten has launched an inquiry into an outbreak of Covid-19 on one of its ships and is working with police and other authorities to investigate failings.
