KLM stewardess does not have Hantavirus, WHO confirms

A KLM stewardess, who came into close contact with one of the Hantavirus victims who died, has tested negative for the disease.

The World Health Organisation said in a email to journalists that they had been told by their local representatives that the woman had tested negative. She was hospitalised on Wednesday in Amsterdam with mild symptoms.

RTL reported on Thursday that 60 people who were on board the KLM flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam have been identified. They may have come into contact with the 69-year-old woman who was removed from the flight because she was too ill to travel.

A spokeswoman for Kennemerland regional health board said on Thursday fewer than 10 people on the flight had intensive contact with the woman, and they are all people who had helped her because she was unwell. She later died.

They will still be monitored to make sure that none of them have picked up the virus.

The MV Hondius cruise ship is on its way to Spain, where it is due to arrive on Saturday. Two Dutch doctors and a WHO expert are now on board the ship. None of the remaining passengers or crew are symptomatic, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon.

Hantavirus has been confirmed in the second of the two patients brought to Dutch hospitals after they were evacuated from the cruise ship Hondius, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to six.

The patient, a 56-year-old British man, is being treated at Leiden teaching hospital, from where he told British media he was “doing okay“. Martin Anstee, a retired police officer, was acting as a guide for passengers on board the ship.

The other patient in the Netherlands is being treated at Radboud teaching hospital in Nijmegen. He is Dutch.