A major health operation unfolded this week after two evacuation flights carrying 28 passengers from the cruise ship MV Hondius, which has been hit by a rare hantavirus outbreak, landed safely at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands shortly after midnight on Tuesday. Among the evacuees were eight Dutch nationals, while passengers of other nationalities are expected to continue onward to their home countries from the Netherlands, according to authorities.
The outbreak has triggered heightened medical precautions across Europe. In a separate development, Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) in Nijmegen placed 12 hospital staff members into a six-week preventive quarantine after they were exposed to blood and urine samples handled without the latest strict infection control protocols. The hospital emphasized that the risk of infection is considered very low and confirmed that patient care services remain fully operational.
Radboudumc admitted a hantavirus-infected passenger from the MV Hondius on May 7. Hospital board chair Bertine Lahuis stated that a full internal investigation will be conducted to determine how protocol breaches occurred, adding that lessons would be learned to prevent future incidents.
Meanwhile, the MV Hondius itself departed late Monday night carrying 25 crew members along with a doctor and nurse. All passengers have now disembarked. The vessel is expected to arrive in the Netherlands by May 17, according to its operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
The outbreak has already claimed three lives, including a Dutch couple and a German national. Hantavirus is typically transmitted through contact with infected rodents, though rare cases of person-to-person transmission have been reported in close-contact environments.
The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Monday that there are now seven laboratory-confirmed cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus linked to the ship, along with two additional suspected cases. One of these involves a deceased individual who was not tested, and another was reported on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island lacking diagnostic facilities.
Several countries have also reported infections among evacuated passengers. A French passenger tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands and is currently in stable condition in intensive care, according to French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. In Spain, health authorities confirmed that one of 14 quarantined passengers in Madrid tested positive but remains asymptomatic while further testing is conducted.
Health experts and international agencies continue to monitor the evolving situation closely as investigations into the outbreak’s origin and containment measures intensify.
