A Dutch hospital has quarantined 12 staff members as a preventive measure after blood and urine from a hantavirus patient were handled without observing strict protocols, according to officials, as medics around the world work to stop the spread of the outbreak.
The 12 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 quarantine highlights the difficulty of quickly enforcing stricter hospital protocols to manage the hantavirus outbreak linked to the Hondius cruise ship.
The World Health Organization 9WHO) increased its tally of confirmed cases in the outbreak to nine, up by two from the previous day.
The head of the United Nations agency said more cases could come because of the long incubation period, but that this was not a pandemic, and was nothing like COVID-19.
The virus can be deadly, although it does not spread easily from person to person.
The Radboudumc hospital admitted its hantavirus patient, a passenger from the cruise ship, on 7 May.
"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.
"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," Hermans said.
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 17 May, ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions 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.
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.
So far, all are considered to have been contaminated on the cruise trip, or before boarding the ship.
All suspected cases have been isolated and placed under strict medical supervision, minimising any risk of further transmission, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
All passengers who had disembarked the ship at earlier stages in the cruise had been located, Tedros said, adding it was up to their respective countries to implement protocols to prevent the virus from spreading.
In the latest report of a potential case, Italy's top infectious diseases hospital said it would examine biological samples from a man who had been in contact with the Dutch woman who died of hantavirus.
Spain announced late on Monday that a Spaniard had tested positive, one of 14 quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid. It said on Tuesday that definitive tests had confirmed negative results for the 13 others in quarantine.
The confirmed cases also include a French passenger who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday and was in intensive care but in a stable condition.
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Biological samples from an Italian man were transferred to a specialist hospital for testing on Tuesday, after he was suspected of contracting hantavirus. Meanwhile, World Health Organization boss Tedros Ghebreyesus said there were “no sign” of a larger outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise.
Start your day informed with the AnewZ Morning Brief. Here are the top stories for the 12th of May, covering the latest developments you need to know.
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Biological samples from an Italian man were transferred to a specialist hospital for testing on Tuesday, after he was suspected of contracting hantavirus. Meanwhile, World Health Organization boss Tedros Ghebreyesus said there were “no sign” of a larger outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise.
The public health challenge linked to the emergence of a rare strain of hantavirus is complex, according to pharmacist and health commentator Thorrun Govind. She told AnewZ's Daybreak the situation was complicated by the number of nationalities involved and the need to safely return the passengers.
Countries worldwide sought to prevent the further spread of the hantavirus on Thursday, after an outbreak on a cruise ship, by tracking those who had disembarked before the virus was detected and anyone who had close contact with them since.
Singapore has isolated and is testing two of its residents who travelled aboard a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, the Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) said on Thursday.
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