Evacuation flight with 2 passsengers land at Schiphol; 1 has no hantaivurs symptoms
The first medical evacuation flight from the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, arrived at Schiphol Airport at around 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Emergency services were standing ready to transport two patients on board, one to a hospital in Leiden and the other to a hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany. The patient in Germany is stable and shows no symptoms indicating a hantavirus infection, the emergency services reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, two planes carrying three passengers departed from the Cape Verdean capital Praia towards Amsterdam with a Dutch national (41), a British national (56), and a German national (65) on board, NOS reports. The plane carrying the third passenger was delayed by technical difficulties. It departed for the Netherlands on Thursday morning.
The passenger treated in Germany is believed to be a 65-year-old German woman who is closely related to one of the three passengers on the cruise ship who died last month. No further details about the person’s identity have been released.
The other patient on board was taken to the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). The hospital declined to tell NOS whether it was the Dutch or British patient and also wouldn’t comment on their condition.
Three passengers of the MV Hondius died last month, including a Dutch couple from Friesland. The shipping company raised the alarm last week when one of the passengers, who was receiving urgent care in a hospital in Johannesburg, tested positive for the hantavirus.
Hantavirus had also been confirmed in the Dutch woman, who also died in a South African hospital. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that both cases involved the dangerous Andes variant of the virus, which can spread from person to person. The number of confirmed infections has since increased to seven.
Two days before the 69-year-old Dutch woman died from the infection, she exited the cruise ship on the island of Saint Helena, where her husband's remains were also removed from the vessel. She then flew an Airlink flight to Johannesburg, where she transferred to KLM flight 592 with a destination of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
The woman's condition had deteriorated substantially up to the point she boarded the Boeing 777, and the KLM crew eventually ordered her off the flight. She was transported to an area hospital, where she died the following day.
Workers at the Dutch municipal health service GGD were urgently seeking the people who were on that aircraft, which KLM says can transport up to 381 passengers. A contact tracing operation in Saint Helena and South Africa has not found any infected passengers or crew from the earlier Airlink flight, which was carrying about 90 people in total.
Argentina has promised to supply tests for the hantavirus to the Netherlands, AD reported. The South American country is making supplies for 2,500 tests available to affected countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Senegal.
The Dutch couple who died from the hantavirus may have contracted the virus in the far south on Argenty, the news agency AP reported based on two Argentine officials investigating the origin of the virus. According to AP, the government in Buenos Aires currently views this as the most likely scenario.
