A KLM flight attendant in Amsterdam has been hospitalized with symptoms and is being tested for a hantavirus infection after contact with a passenger now known to have died, widening concern around a cruise ship outbreak that has already killed three people.
The passenger was a 69-year-old Dutch woman who briefly boarded a KLM flight from Johannesburg before worsening and getting off the plane. She later died in a hospital in South Africa, and the airline worker’s case now links the outbreak on the MV Hondius to a separate contact-tracing effort far beyond the ship itself.
That matters today because the outbreak has already touched several countries and continues to move through public health systems in Europe, Africa and the United States. As of Thursday morning, eight cases had been linked to the ship, including five confirmed cases and three suspected cases, and the toll included a 70-year-old Dutch man who died on April 11, the Dutch woman, and a German woman who died on board on May 2.
The cruise line, Oceanwide Expeditions, said 30 guests disembarked the MV Hondius in Saint Helena on April 24, and at least 29 passengers got off the ship after the first death on board. At least six American citizens were among those 29, and authorities in Georgia are monitoring two passengers who returned to the state while Arizona officials are watching one more.
Oceanwide Expeditions said no symptomatic individuals were present on board, even as it continued monitoring the ship’s progress on a route from Cape Verde to the Canary Islands that was expected to take three to four days. That leaves the central tension in the outbreak unchanged: passengers have already scattered across multiple countries, but the full chain of exposure is still being traced one contact at a time.