Everything starts on the island of Saint Helena and ends in different places around the world. The Hondius made a stopover at this British enclave in the Atlantic. Around 40 people disembarked there, according to Dutch authorities confirmed this Thursday. They did not continue the journey on the cruise ship.
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Among the people who left the Hondius was the wife of the Dutch man who was the first victim of hantavirus, who was accompanying her husband’s body back to Amsterdam.
Earlier, the woman took a flight from Saint Helena to Johannesburg, to then board another to her country.
The wife of the first victim, who also died, was briefly on a KLM flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam before being forced to disembark
The woman showed symptoms of infection. Upon arriving in Johannesburg, the woman briefly boarded a KLM flight from Johannesburg to the Netherlands but was disembarked before takeoff, the airline reported on Wednesday. “Due to the passenger’s condition at that time, the crew decided not to allow her to travel on this flight,” KLM stated, referring to flight KL592 from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25.
“After the passenger disembarked, the flight departed for the Netherlands,” KLM added. The woman was admitted to the emergency services of a hospital in Johannesburg, where she ultimately died the next day. Now, Dutch health authorities are contacting passengers from the flight “as a precautionary measure,” according to KLM.
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This Thursday it was revealed that a flight attendant from the same airline had to be hospitalized after being in contact with the woman infected with hantavirus who ultimately died.
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The same applies to people who took the flight between Saint Helena and the South African city, although not all had been part of the cruise ship’s passengers. Especially after a Swiss man, who had been on the Hondius, was admitted in Zurich, where he is receiving medical care after testing positive. This passenger returned with his wife at the end of April and disembarked in South Africa with his partner, from where he traveled to his country by plane. After responding to an email from the cruise line informing about the health issue on board, he went to the hospital in Zurich upon noticing symptoms of the disease, where he was immediately placed in isolation. His wife has also been isolated for safety, although she has not shown any symptoms so far, and authorities are tracing possible contacts of the patient in recent days.
Meanwhile, French health authorities reported yesterday that they are “closely” monitoring the case of a Frenchman who traveled on the same plane from Saint Helena to Johannesburg on the same flight as one of the two patients evacuated from the ship to Johannesburg for hospitalization at the end of April, the French authorities specified, who at no time mentioned contagion.
French health authorities indicated that they maintain “close monitoring” of the situation and that “contact tracing is being carried out around the confirmed cases,” both on board the ship and in South Africa. The French Ministry of Health indicated that additional follow-up measures could be implemented upon the return of French passengers from the ship, who according to the WHO are five, once it has been confirmed that the strain involved is the Andes virus, transmissible between humans, although very rarely. Close contact is needed. So far, the two loose ends that have appeared had been on the ship, where it is more likely they were infected.
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