A 69-year-old Dutch woman who died from hantavirus on April 26 had spent time aboard a KLM jet at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo airport the night before.
The crew removed her before the plane departed, and the GGD is now notifying every passenger on that flight, reports AD.
The flight in question was KLM service KL592, scheduled to leave Johannesburg at 11:15 PM on April 25, bound for Amsterdam.
After assessing the woman’s condition, the crew decided she was too ill to travel and had her removed before take-off. The plane continued to the Netherlands without her.
She passed away in a Johannesburg hospital the following day.
GGD contacts travelers
The RIVM (Netherlands’ national public health institute) notified KLM of her time on board on Tuesday evening. The GGD has since moved to contact everyone who was on that service, according to AD.
Anyone feeling unwell or anxious is advised to call their huisarts (GP) or the GGD in their region.
According to the RIVM, the window between infection and the onset of illness averages two to four weeks.
How did she end up on that flight?
After her husband died on board the Dutch cruise ship, MV Hondius, on April 11, his body was brought ashore at Saint Helena on April 24. The woman left the ship to accompany his remains on the journey back to the Netherlands.
Somewhere along the way, she became seriously ill herself.
She had flown from Saint Helena to South Africa on April 25 with 82 other passengers and six crew members. From there, it was planned that she would fly back to the Netherlands.
However, her condition had deteriorated by the time she boarded the plane to Amsterdam.
READ MORE | WHO confirms Dutch woman died from hantavirus on cruise ship
The WHO has announced it is tracing all of these passengers as well. Authorities on Saint Helena are also conducting contact tracing, and a small number of residents have been advised to self-isolate as a precaution.
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