AMSTERDAM, May 12 (Reuters) – Two planes with 28 passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, landed in the Netherlands on Tuesday and a Dutch hospital treating a hantavirus patient quarantined 12 staffers in a preventative measure.
The planes landed at Eindhoven Airport shortly after midnight, carrying eight Dutch nationals. Other passengers of different nationalities will continue on to their home countries from the Netherlands, authorities previously said.
The Dutch hospital staff members were placed into preventive quarantine for six weeks after blood and urine were handled without updated and more strict protocols, the Radboudumc hospital in the city of Nijmegen said, adding that the infection risk is very low and patient care continues uninterrupted.
Radboudumc admitted a Hondius passenger infected with hantavirus on May 7.
“We will carefully investigate the course of events to learn from this so that it can be prevented in the future,” said Bertine Lahuis, the chair of the hospital’s executive board.
Meanwhile, the Hondius set sail for the Netherlands late on Monday evening with 25 crew as well as a doctor and a nurse. All passengers have disembarked the ship. It is expected to arrive in the Netherlands by May 17, ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions said.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German national – have died since the start of the outbreak on the ship, which is usually spread by wild rodents but can also be transmitted person-to-person in rare cases of close contact.
The World Health Organization on Monday said there were now seven confirmed cases of the Andes strain of the hantavirus and two other suspected cases – one person who died before being tested, and one on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where there were no tests available.
The confirmed cases include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Monday said the passenger was in stable condition after her health had briefly worsened.
“Our compatriot who tested positive for Hantavirus is still in intensive care in a stable condition,” he said.
One of 14 Spaniards quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid has tested positive for the virus, the Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement on Monday evening, adding that the patient presented no symptoms and further tests were being done before a definitive result was announced.
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
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