Spain identifies two flight contacts linked to cruise ship hantavirus outbreak

Yesterday 10:24

By: Dakir Madiha

Spain identifies two flight contacts linked to cruise ship hantavirus outbreak

Spanish health authorities have identified two individuals under surveillance on their territory connected to the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius, as the difficulty of tracing secondary exposures beyond the ship itself becomes increasingly apparent.

A 32-year-old woman in the southeastern province of Alicante is being tested for hantavirus after presenting mild respiratory symptoms consistent with infection, Spain's Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla told reporters on Friday. The woman was a passenger on KLM flight KL592 from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 — the same flight from which a 69-year-old Dutch woman had been offloaded before departure due to her deteriorating condition. That Dutch passenger, whose husband had been the first person to die in the Hondius outbreak, subsequently died in a Johannesburg hospital on April 26. The Alicante patient was admitted to a negative-pressure isolation room at Sant Joan Hospital, where biological samples including a PCR test are being analyzed at Spain's National Center for Microbiology. Results are expected within 24 hours. Padilla stressed that the exposure had been "very brief" and indicated that authorities consider infection "very unlikely."

Later on Friday, Spanish authorities disclosed a second contact under surveillance — a woman residing in Catalonia who had been aboard the same flight but had initially escaped contact tracing due to a seat change on the aircraft. According to Spain's Health Alert and Emergency Coordination Center, she is displaying no symptoms and will remain under medical surveillance in quarantine at a health center in Catalonia. The Spanish Ministry of Health stated that the individual had not been initially identified because of the in-flight seat change. The case was flagged through the European Early Warning and Response System, which alerted Spanish authorities that two people whose final destinations included Spain had traveled in proximity to the passenger who subsequently died.

Concern over broader transmission has been tempered by a significant development: the KLM flight attendant who had contact with the sick Dutch passenger during boarding in Johannesburg tested negative for hantavirus on both PCR and serological tests, as confirmed by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "This should reassure almost everyone: while this virus is dangerous, it poses a threat primarily to those actually infected. The risk to the general public remains very low," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters on Thursday. The outbreak involves the Andes strain of hantavirus, the only known strain capable of human-to-human transmission, though experts emphasize this remains extremely rare and typically requires close and prolonged contact. As of May 8, nine suspected cases had been reported worldwide, with five confirmed and three deaths.