Five KLM passengers had very close contact with Dutch hantavirus patient

Municipal health service GGD Kennemerland has identified 60 people who had contact with a 69-year-old Dutch woman who died from a hantavirus infection, including five who had “intensive contact with her,” RTL Nieuws reports. These people were on a KLM flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Amsterdam on April 25 with the woman, who died a day later. The two evacuated cruise ship passengers being treated in the Netherlands have both tested positive for the hantavirus.

The woman was trying to get back to the Netherlands after her 69-year-old husband had died on board the HV Hondius cruise ship on April 11. She was already sick. She boarded the KLM Boeing 777, but her condition deteriorated, and staff removed her from the plane before takeoff. She died in a hospital in Johannesburg on April 26 and later tested positive for the Andes variant of the hantavirus.

GGD Kennemerland is conducting source and contact tracing for the people who were on the KLM flight with the woman. The health service identified five people who had very close contact with her. “These are the people who provided assistance. They will be actively monitored. Experts are currently consulting on which measures are appropriate,” the health service told RTL Nieuws.

The five people include a flight attendant from Haarlem who was hospitalized with mild symptoms this week. She is in isolation at UMC Amsterdam awaiting her test results. Two other people on the flight have also developed symptoms and were tested for the hantavirus. Their tests came back negative.

The GGD is also contacting around 50 other people who sat in the same row as the woman, as well as the two rows in front of and behind her. “In their case, there is passive monitoring. They must take their temperature daily. They will also receive further information from the RIVM.”

The hantavirus outbreak started on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, likely with the Dutch woman and her husband, who had been traveling in South America for months before boarding the cruise ship on April 1. A third passenger has also died.

Three other people on board have been medically evacuated and arrived at Schiphol this week. Two went to Dutch hospitals, and one to a hospital in Germany. The two in the Netherlands both tested positive for the hantavirus, the hospitals involved - Radboudumc in Nijmegen and LUMC in Leiden - confirmed to NOS.