Two planes carrying passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, landed in the Netherlands early Tuesday as Dutch health authorities placed 12 hospital staff under preventive quarantine.
The flights arrived at Eindhoven Airport shortly after midnight carrying 28 passengers, including eight Dutch nationals. Other passengers were expected to continue onward to their home countries from the Netherlands.
The Radboudumc hospital in Nijmegen said 12 staff members had been quarantined for six weeks after blood and urine samples from an infected patient were handled before stricter safety protocols were introduced.
The hospital stressed that the risk of infection remained “very low” and said patient care had continued without disruption.
Radboudumc admitted a passenger from the Hondius cruise ship who tested positive for hantavirus on 7 May.
“We will carefully investigate the course of events to learn from this so that it can be prevented in the future,” said Bertine Lahuis, chair of the hospital’s executive board.
The Hondius left for the Netherlands late Monday with 25 crew members, alongside a doctor and nurse, after all passengers had disembarked. Ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions said the vessel was expected to arrive in the Netherlands on 17 May.
Three people a Dutch couple and a German national have died since the outbreak began aboard the ship.
Hantavirus is commonly spread through contact with infected rodents, although rare person-to-person transmission has been linked to the Andes strain of the virus.
The World Health Organization said on Monday there were now seven confirmed cases linked to the outbreak, along with two suspected cases, including one person who died before being tested and another on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha where testing was unavailable.
Among the confirmed cases was a French passenger who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the patient remained in intensive care but was in stable condition after her health briefly deteriorated.
Spain’s Health Ministry also confirmed that one of 14 Spaniards quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid had tested positive for the virus, although the patient was asymptomatic and additional tests were still being carried out.
Erizia Rubyjeana
