WHO: No signs of major hantavirus outbreak

The cruiser left Tenerife on Monday and is sailing towards Rotterdam, where it should arrive on May 17, the BBC reports.

The last group of 28 passengers arrived in Eindhoven, while a total of 122 passengers and crew members were transferred to the Netherlands and their home countries on a repatriation flight in recent days. 27 people remained on board, including 25 crew members and two medical workers.

So far, seven cases of infection have been confirmed, and three people have died, a Dutch citizen on board, his wife in South Africa and a German passenger.

The WHO has previously assessed that the risk of a major outbreak is low, but it has been emphasized that the work is not finished in suppressing the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, 12 employees of the Radboudumc hospital in Nijmegen were placed in a six-week quarantine after handling patient samples without following strict protocols.

Hantavirus is usually transmitted by rodents, but with the Andes strain, human-to-human transmission is possible in rare cases of close contact.

Symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea and difficulty breathing.

(Vijesti.ba/FENA)