Airlink has announced that it is working with South African health authorities after a passenger linked to a rare Hantavirus case died shortly after arriving in Johannesburg on board one of its flights.
The passenger had travelled on Airlink flight 4Z 132 from St Helena Island to Johannesburg on 25 April after leaving the cruise ship MV Hondius, which had been sailing from Argentina to the Canary Islands via Cape Verde.
There were 82 passengers and six crew members onboard the flight.
Airlink passenger later died in South Africa
According to a statement from Airlink, the airline was only informed on 3 May that the passenger had died after arriving in Johannesburg and that her death was believed to be linked to Hantavirus.
The woman had reportedly not appeared visibly ill before boarding in St Helena, and no alert had been issued to the airline ahead of the flight.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi later told Parliament that the passenger passed through routine temperature screening at OR Tambo International Airport without triggering concern.
“It cannot be said that South Africa’s safety mechanisms were so lax that they just allowed people in without screening,” Motsoaledi said, explaining that not all infected individuals present with a fever.
Contact tracing underway
Following notification from health authorities, Airlink provided passenger names, seating allocations and contact details to assist with tracing efforts.
The airline is also directly contacting passengers from the flight and advising them to get in touch with the Department of Health.
Motsoaledi said authorities have so far identified 62 people who may have come into contact with the affected passengers, with 42 already traced and placed under observation.
The tracing process includes airport contacts, healthcare workers in Kempton Park who treated the woman after she collapsed, and medical staff involved in treating another infected passenger currently hospitalised in Sandton.
Rare strain identified
The cases have been linked to the Andes strain of Hantavirus, a rare strain associated with South America.
Motsoaledi said it is one of the few strains known to allow limited human-to-human transmission, although this remains extremely uncommon and generally requires very close contact.
The first two people who died were husband and wife, both passengers on the cruise ship.
Experts from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the World Health Organization (WHO) are continuing to coordinate the response.
NICD infectious diseases expert Professor Lucille Blumberg told Parliament that South African authorities identified the virus within 24 hours of receiving an international alert connected to the cruise ship.
She described the response as unusually fast, given the rarity of the virus and the complexity of the case.
Airlink said it continues to follow all public health and aviation regulations and noted that its Embraer aircraft use HEPA filtration systems that continuously clean and refresh cabin air during flights.
