Two planes carrying 28 passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, landed in the Netherlands on Tuesday, and a Dutch hospital treating a hantavirus patient quarantined 12 staffers as a preventive measure.
The planes landed at Eindhoven Airport shortly after midnight, carrying eight Dutch nationals. Other passengers of different nationalities will continue to their home countries from the Netherlands, authorities previously said.
The Dutch hospital staff members were placed into preventive quarantine for six weeks after blood and urine were handled without updated and more strict 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 Bertine Lahuis, the chair of the hospital’s executive board.