At the Nijmegen University Medical Center in the Netherlands, 12 staff members were placed under a six-week quarantine after violating safety protocols while working with a patient infected with hantavirus. This concerns a passenger of the cruise ship MV Hondius, where an outbreak of the dangerous infection previously occurred, Reuters reported on Tuesday, May 12.
According to reports, the management of the center has placed 12 medical workers under a preventive six-week quarantine due to non-compliance with heightened safety measures while handling blood and urine samples from the infected individual. The hospital stated that the risk of infection is very low, and medical assistance to other patients continues without interruption, Reuters reports.
The infected passenger of the cruise ship MV Hondius, where an outbreak of hantavirus previously occurred, was transported to the Nijmegen University Medical Center on May 7. On the night of May 12, a plane carrying 28 passengers, who were evacuated from the ship in Tenerife the day before, also landed in the Netherlands. Among them are eight Dutch citizens.
Passengers of Hondius MV returned to their home countries
Since the outbreak of hantavirus on the Hondius MV, three people have died: a Dutch couple and a German citizen.
On Monday, May 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported seven confirmed cases of this type of infection, as well as two suspected cases (one person died before testing, and another on the island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, where testing was unavailable).
Among the confirmed cases is a female passenger from France, who tested positive for hantavirus after the cruise ship docked in Tenerife on Sunday, May 10. Earlier, Spain reported a positive test result for one of the passengers on the ship, who is currently in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.
Four German passengers from Hondius MV were also transported to Germany by special transport. They will undergo further examination at the University Hospital in Frankfurt am Main, after which they will be quarantined in different federal states, including Berlin and Baden-Württemberg.
In light of new infection cases, authorities and medical personnel continue to strengthen precautionary measures around the passengers of MV Hondius, bb.lv reports. The WHO recommends a prolonged quarantine for all those on board, and several European countries have already organized special medical transport and monitoring for the evacuated passengers.
