The plane landed at Schiphol around 7:50 p.m. Emergency services are ready to receive the occupants of the aircraft and rescuers are wearing protective suits. A total of three passengers from the cruise ship MV Hondius left for the Netherlands on two flights this evening, of which this was one. The other aircraft is expected later at Schiphol, which made an unexpected stopover in Gran Canaria earlier Wednesday.
It is unknown who is on board this flight. On board the two flights are two crew members with symptoms of the hantavirus, a Dutch (41) and a British (56), and a German (65) who is closely related to a passenger who died on the ship at the beginning of this month.
On the way to specialized hospitals
The three will be transferred to specialized hospitals in Europe, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously reported. This includes the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the UKD academic hospital in Düsseldorf.
Some of the deceased and sick people on the ship have now been diagnosed with the hantavirus, an infectious disease that is mainly transmitted to humans by rodents. The current outbreak concerns the Andean variant of the virus, which has previously been transmitted from person to person in a few cases and can also cause serious lung and heart complaints. Two Dutch people and a German have already died in the past month.
KLM reported today that one of the deceased Dutch people tried to return to Amsterdam on a passenger flight after she turned out to be ill. She reached Johannesburg via Saint Helena, where her husband already died from the effects of the virus. There she was removed from a KLM flight to Schiphol, when it became clear how bad a condition she was in. She died shortly afterwards. Passengers of the flight will be informed.