The WHO has put authorities on alert, while tracing 82 passengers flying is underway and possible transmission of the hantavirus is being investigated.
In international concern, the case of a woman’s death from hantavirus has led the World Health Organization and relevant authorities to immediately mobilize to trace the 82 passengers on a flight linked to the incident. The investigations are focused on the possible transmission of the virus, and all travel data and contacts of the passengers are being examined in an effort to clarify the risk of further spread and to limit any potential health risk.
The World Health Organization is searching for more than 80 passengers on a aircraft on which a Dutch woman who contracted hantavirus and died in Johannesburg, where she had been taken.
Phobias for human-to-human transmission
This woman, aged 69, disembarked from the cruise ship MV Hondius on the island of St Helena on April 24 as she was experiencing “gastrointestinal symptoms”. The following day she took a plane to South Africa, was admitted to a hospital in Johannesburg and died there on 26 April. Her husband, aged 70, also died on board.
On Monday it was confirmed that the woman had been infected with hantavirus. “Searches have been launched to locate the passengers” of the South African Airlink plane, which took off from St Helena on April 25 carrying 82 passengers and a crew of six, the company’s marketing director, Karin Murray, said.
The WHO suspects that the virus was transmitted from person to person.
The concern of the authorities
Only one flight a week is operated from Johannesburg to the remote island of St Helena in the middle of the Atlantic. The flight takes about four hours. South African authorities have asked the airline to notify those passengers so they can contact the health ministry.
The cruise ship MV Hondius will sail from Cape Verde in the next few hours to either the Canary Islands or the Netherlands, according to a WHO spokeswoman.
