Planes with 28 hantavirus cruise passengers land in Netherlands; hospital quarantines 12 staff

AMSTERDAM – Two planes with 28 passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, landed in the Netherlands on May 12.

In another development, a Dutch hospital treating a hantavirus patient quarantined 12 staff in a preventive 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, the authorities previously said.

The Dutch hospital staff were placed in preventive quarantine for six weeks after blood and urine were handled without updated and stricter 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 the hospital’s executive board chair Bertine Lahuis.

The World Health Organization increased its tally of confirmed cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus to nine, up by two from the previous day. It did not identify the new cases, but the tally followed announcements of positive tests for a Spaniard and a US citizen.

International medical officials are working to contain the outbreak of the virus, which hit the Hondius luxury cruise ship, which has set off for the Netherlands after discharging its final passengers in Spain’s Canary Islands.

The virus can be deadly, although the authorities say it does not spread easily from person to person so poses little risk of an epidemic.

After the last passengers disembarked the ship in Spain’s Canary Islands, the Hondius set sail for the Netherlands late on May 11 with 25 crew as well as a doctor and a nurse. 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.

Nine confirmed cases

In addition to the nine confirmed cases, the WHO recognises two ‌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.

All suspected cases have been isolated and managed under strict medical supervision, minimising any risk of further transmission, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Madrid.

“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak but of course the situation could change and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” he said.

Quarantined

Spain announced late on May 11 that a Spaniard had tested positive, one of 14 quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid. The patient had developed a fever and breathing difficulties but was stable, the Spanish Health Ministry said.

The confirmed cases also include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on May 10.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on May 11 said the passenger was in stable condition after her health had briefly worsened.

US Department of Health and Human Services officials said on May 11 that 18 passengers from the Hondius were ​flown back to the US and quarantined, with the one passenger who tested weakly positive now in a Nebraska biocontainment ‌unit.

WHO’s Tedros thanked Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for allowing the Hondius to head there and disembark passengers.

Standing next to him, Mr Sanchez used the opportunity to call for funding for international organisations.

“We need international cooperation and organisations like the WHO to be provided with the resources to realise their work,” he said. REUTERS