Saint Helena Island is 2,000 kilometers from the African continent and, although the closest point is Angola, it is the South African company SouthAfrican Airlink that connects the island with Johannesburg every Saturday, in the only weekly flight that lands and takes off from Saint Helena International Airport.
Read more The ‘Hondius’ will not touch land in the Canary Islands and passengers will disembark at sea
Last April 25 was a Saturday and it was the day on which 30 passengers of the Hondius –from 12 different nationalities –, presumably, boarded that plane to later fly to their countries of origin, after having left the ship the day before.
If the positive case of the KLM flight attendant is confirmed, it would be the first case not directly linked to the ‘Hondius’
Yesterday, the island authorities decided to quarantine for 45 days – until June 9 – the small group of Saint Helena citizens who had contact with these travelers. The same authorities also assured yesterday that none of them, nor any island resident, has tested positive for hantavirus, despite which they maintain the isolation measure as a precaution.
The WHO reminds that the virus and the situation it has generated represent a very low risk, which does not prevent Saint Helena from becoming its possible escape point, the place from which the hantavirus can escape and spread worldwide.
Also read
On that April 25 flight traveled the coffin of the first victim of the outbreak – a Dutch man – and his wife, who was also infected. The woman, who died the next day in the emergency room of a Johannesburg hospital, was briefly on board a KLM flight to Amsterdam, from which she was forced to disembark. Yesterday it was reported that a flight attendant from that flight was hospitalized in Amsterdam to undergo tests for a possible hantavirus infection. If confirmed, this would have been the first infection not directly related to the Hondius outbreak, among the five confirmed and three suspected cases counted by the WHO. Today, it has been learned that the KLM flight attendant tested negative for hantavirus.
That disembarkation of 30 passengers caused countries around the world to rush yesterday to locate the people who had left the cruise ship, in an attempt to prevent further spread of the disease.
Read more Health and the WHO disagree on mandatory quarantine for passengers of the ‘Hondius’
Beyond the three suspected positive cases that were evacuated yesterday from the Hondius to the Netherlands, there is another confirmed case in Switzerland. A man who disembarked from the cruise on April 24 and is hospitalized in Zurich.
From here, a string of citizens from around the world who are being monitored or have even decided to self-isolate. The Georgia Department of State is monitoring two citizens who “are in good health and show no symptoms.” Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health said yesterday that residents of this state had been on the ship, but did not specify how many, and that they are being monitored. The Arizona Department of Health Services received notification that a resident traveled on the cruise. He remains asymptomatic and is being monitored.
Also, two cruisers from Singapore are isolated in a specialized hospital and a Danish citizen has voluntarily isolated himself, according to the Danish Patient Safety Center announced yesterday, as well as two British citizens in the United Kingdom. The count closes with a French citizen who has been monitored by authorities since Wednesday.
And today, the Chilean Ministry of Health has ordered the preventive isolation of two citizens of this country who traveled on the cruise. Authorities have indicated that, although both show no symptoms and are in good condition, they are being epidemiologically monitored with diagnostic tests as a precaution.
In total, 11 people who disembarked on April 24 from the Hondius . That day, two Canadians, two Swiss, one German, one Danish, seven British, one from Saint Kitts and Nevis, three Dutch, one New Zealander, one Singaporean, one Turkish, one Swedish, six Americans, and two of unknown origin left the cruise.
Read more The judge of the dana reiterates that the alert was sent late and poorly without justified reasons
