By Charlotte Van Campenhout and Victoria Waldersee
AMSTERDAM/MADRID, May 12 (Reuters) – A Dutch hospital quarantined 12 staff members in a preventive measure after blood and urine from a hantavirus patient were handled without observing strict protocols.
The hospital staff members will be quarantined for six weeks, the Radboudumc hospital in the city of Nijmegen said, adding that the infection risk was very low and patient care continued uninterrupted.
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 U.S. 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 authorities say it does not spread easily from person to person so poses little risk of an epidemic.
The Radboudumc hospital admitted the patient, a passenger from the ship, 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.
HONDIUS SETS SAIL FOR NETHERLANDS
After the last passengers disembarked the ship in Spain’s Canary Islands, the Hondius set sail for the Netherlands late on Monday evening with 25 crew, a doctor and a nurse. It is expected to arrive in the Netherlands by May 17, ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions said.
Two planes carrying 28 passengers and crew from aboard the Hondius arrived in the Netherlands from the Canary Islands on Tuesday, shortly after midnight. Eight are Dutch citizens; the others will continue on to their home countries, authorities have said.
Three people – a Dutch couple and a German national – have died since the start of the outbreak of the virus, 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
In the latest confirmed case, Spain announced late on Monday 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 Sunday. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Monday said the passenger was in intensive care but in a stable condition.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials said on Monday that 18 passengers from the Hondius were flown back to the U.S. 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, 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.
(Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo in Madrid, Jennifer Rigby in London, Andrey Khalip in Lisbon; Writing by Ingrid MelanderEditing by Thomas Derpinghaus and Peter Graff)
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