On May 12, 2 planes carrying 28 passengers from the cruise ship MV Hondius, where the hantavirus outbreak occurred, landed at Eindhoven airport in the Netherlands in the early morning. Among these were 8 Dutch citizens, passengers of other nationalities who would continue to return home from the Netherlands.
Radboudumc Hospital in Nijmegen city said that 12 medical staff were quarantined for 6 weeks after processing blood and urine samples without applying new strict procedures. The hospital emphasized that the risk of infection is very low and treatment activities are still taking place normally.
Radboudumc University Hospital received a passenger on the Hondius train infected with hantavirus from May 7. Chairman of the Executive Board of Bertine Lahuis Hospital said that this facility will carefully investigate the developments of the incident to prevent similar situations from recurring.
Meanwhile, the Hondius ship left port for the Netherlands on the evening of May 11 with 25 crew members, a doctor and a nurse. All passengers left the ship. The owner of Oceanwide Expeditions said that the ship is expected to dock at the Dutch port on May 17.
3 people have died since the epidemic broke out on the ship, including a Dutch couple and a German citizen. Hantavirus is usually transmitted from wild rodents, but in rare cases can be transmitted from person to person in close contact.
According to the World Health Organization, there are currently 7 confirmed cases of Andes Hantavirus infection and 2 other suspected infections.
The confirmed cases include a French passenger who tested positive after the ship docked on the Canary Islands on May 10. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said that the patient is in stable condition despite his health having deteriorated for a short time.
The Spanish Ministry of Health also announced that one of the 14 people being quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid tested positive for the virus but showed no symptoms and is still undergoing further testing.
