A KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight attendant has been hospitalized in the Netherlands with suspected Hantavirus infection after she fell ill following contact with a woman who succumbed to the deadly Andes strain of the virus in late April.
The 69-year-old woman had been a passenger on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which set sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1. Just days into the cruise, the woman’s husband became seriously sick and died aboard the ship.
The cruise ship continued on its voyage before docking in the remote British Overseas Territory of St Helena on April 24, where the man’s body was taken ashore. The woman accompanied her husband’s body and then got on a flight the same day to Johannesburg.
Once in Johannesburg, the woman boarded KLM flight KL-592 to Amsterdam Schiphol, which was due to depart South Africa at 11:15 pm on April 24.
By this point, however, the woman was suffering gastrointestinal symptoms, and her condition was already worsening. The woman boarded the packed Boeing 777-300 widebody jet, but flight attendants were so worried about her condition that she was refused travel.
The woman remained in Johannesburg, and the following morning, she was rushed to the hospital. She was pronounced dead the same day.
It would, however, take nine days for PCR tests to confirm that the woman died from Hantavirus, and even longer for the strain to be confirmed as Andes – the only known Hantavirus that has the potential to be spread by human-to-human contact.
According to local broadcaster RTL, the flight attendant had been in contact with the woman on the KLM flight in Johannesburg and has since developed mild symptoms.
She has been transferred to the Amsterdam UMC medical center, where she is being kept in isolation and tested for possible Hantavirus infection.
On Wednesday, KLM put out an urgent alert for passengers who were on the same flight as the woman, as Dutch health authorities carry out contact tracing of everyone on the passenger manifest.
The flight departed Johannesburg International Airport (JNB) at 11:15 p.m. local time on April 25 and arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on the morning of April 26.
Passengers on this flight may also have booked tickets as a codeshare with one of KLM’s partners, including Air France (AF08282), Delta Air Lines (DL-9560), and SAS (SK-6855).
In a statement, a spokesperson for KLM said it was working closely with the Dutch National Institute for Public Health, which is leading the country’s response to the Hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ship MV Hondius.
South African health authorities are also urgently trying to trace everyone who was on board the flight the woman caught from St Helena to Johannesburg.
The flight was operated by local carrier Airlink, which confirmed that 82 passengers and 6 crew were onboard the plane.
According to the WHO, human hantavirus infection is “primarily acquired through contact with the urine, faeces, or saliva of infected rodents.” The husband and wife who were the first to die in this outbreak had been on vacation in a remote part of Argentina, where the Andes strain of Hantavirus is present.
“Although uncommon, limited human-to-human transmission has been reported in previous outbreaks of Andes virus,” the WHO warned in a global update.
Three people, the husband and wife, and a third person on the cruise ship, have died in this current outbreak. A fourth person from the cruise ship remains in intensive care in South Africa, while three other passengers were medically evacuated on Wednesday.
