A Dutch hospital has quarantined 12 staff members as a preventive measure after blood and urine from a hantavirus patient were handled without observing the strictest protocols, as medics around the world work to contain an outbreak linked to the Hondius luxury cruise ship.
The Radboudumc hospital in Nijmegen said the 12 staff members will be quarantined for six weeks, emphasizing that the infection risk is very low and that patient care continues uninterrupted. The hospital admitted its hantavirus patient—a passenger from the cruise ship—on May 7.
"What happened … is that strict procedures were followed, but not the very strictest procedures that apply in cases involving this hantavirus," Dutch Health Minister Sophie Hermans told parliament. "The likelihood that staff have been infected as a result is small, but because we know we are dealing with a serious virus, (the hospital) has said: we will play it safe."
Hermans stressed that the situation differs significantly from the COVID-19 pandemic: "It really is a different situation than with COVID. With the knowledge we have and the measures we are taking, we are confident we can keep this virus under control."
The World Health Organization (WHO) has increased its tally of confirmed cases in the outbreak to nine, up by two from the previous day. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that more cases could emerge due to the virus's long incubation period—up to six weeks—but emphasized that this is not a pandemic and is "nothing like COVID-19." The virus can be deadly, although it does not spread easily from person to person; it is usually transmitted by wild rodents, with person-to-person transmission occurring only in rare cases of close contact.
In addition to the nine confirmed cases, the WHO recognizes two suspected cases: one person who died before being tested, and one on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where testing was unavailable. All cases are considered to have been contracted during the cruise or before boarding the ship.
"All suspected cases have been isolated and placed under strict medical supervision, minimizing any risk of further transmission," Tedros said. He warned that additional cases were possible given the "lot of interaction" between passengers before the virus was detected. "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."
After the last passengers disembarked in Spain's Canary Islands, the Hondius set sail for the Netherlands late Monday evening with 25 crew members, a doctor, and a nurse. Ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions said it is expected to arrive in the Netherlands by May 17.
Three people—a Dutch couple and a German national—have died since the outbreak began. Confirmed cases also include:
A French passenger who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands is now in intensive care but in stable condition
A Spaniard who tested positive among 14 people quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid; definitive tests later confirmed negative results for the other 13
One U.S. passenger who tested weakly positive and is now in a Nebraska biocontainment unit, among 18 passengers flown back to the United States and placed in quarantine
In Italy, the country's top infectious diseases hospital announced it would examine biological samples from a man who had been in contact with the Dutch woman who died of hantavirus.
Arnaud Fontanet, head of Epidemiology of Emerging Diseases at France's Pasteur Institute, said the search for new cases could continue for months due to the virus's extended incubation period. However, because hantavirus does not transmit easily between people, he estimates no more than a few dozen additional cases will emerge in total.
Fontanet noted that the crisis "is a good way for us to try to test all that has been done since COVID-19," offering an opportunity to evaluate how international coordination mechanisms function in containing emerging infectious diseases.
WHO officials confirmed that all passengers who disembarked the ship at earlier ports of call have been located, with responsibility now falling to their respective countries to implement protocols to prevent further spread.