ECDC urges quarantine for passengers on KLM flight with Dutch hantavirus patient

Some of the passengers who were on the same flights as a Dutch woman with hantavirus must go into quarantine, Gianfranco Spiteri of the European health service ECDC said during a press conference on Wednesday.

It concerns the LIFT flight from Saint Helena to Johannesburg on April 25, and the KLM flight on the same day from Johannesburg to Amsterdam. The woman was removed from this second flight before departure. She died a day later.

The ECDC considers passengers who sat in the same row as the woman or in the two rows behind and in front of her as high-risk contacts. “It is important that they go into quarantine.” According to the ECDC, monitoring of symptoms is sufficient for all other passengers.

Most passengers on the KLM flight to Amsterdam are not in quarantine, said a spokesperson for the GGD Kennemerland, which conducted the contact tracing for the flight. The 50 people who sat in front of or behind the Dutch woman are “free to come and go as they please.” They have been instructed to monitor themselves closely and to contact the GGD if they develop symptoms, said the spokesperson.

The five people on the KLM flight who had direct physical contact with the woman are in quarantine. These five helped the woman disembark when her condition deteriorated. Among them is a flight attendant who was briefly admitted to the Amsterdam UMC with mild symptoms but tested negative for hantavirus.

Radboudumc employees in quarantine

The 12 Radboudumc employees who are in quarantine because they may have been exposed to the hantavirus were not contagious to others. “Blood tests have confirmed this,” reported the Nijmegen hospital.

The hospital reported this week that it had not followed the correct international guidelines in the treatment of the hantavirus patient who was admitted to the hospital last week. As a result, 12 employees may have come into contact with the virus while processing blood samples and disposing of urine. The hospital had previously said that the chance of actual infection is “very small.”

Radboudumc did not release further details about this blood test. It is also unknown how the employees are doing. “With regard to the privacy of our employees, we cannot say anything about this, other than that going into quarantine for six weeks has an impact.”