A Dutch KLM flight attendant and a French national developed mild symptoms after close contact with a 69-year-old Dutch woman who died from hantavirus in Johannesburg, prompting their isolation for testing, health authorities confirmed Thursday.

The flight attendant, from Haarlem, was taken by ambulance Wednesday night to Amsterdam UMC hospital, where she remains in isolation undergoing tests for the virus, the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport told RTL Nieuws. She worked on KLM flight KL592, scheduled to depart Johannesburg for Amsterdam at 11:15 p.m. on April 25. The deceased woman had briefly boarded the aircraft but was removed by the crew due to her deteriorating condition before takeoff.

The woman, a passenger on the Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship MV Hondius, left the vessel at St. Helena on April 24 amid an ongoing hantavirus outbreak. She flew on an Airlink flight from St. Helena to Johannesburg that day, then attempted to continue on the KLM service. She died the next day in a Johannesburg hospital, with tests confirming the Andes strain of hantavirus, which South African genetic sequencing linked to strains from Argentina.

Dutch public health institute RIVM notified KLM on May 6 of the connection. Authorities identified around 60 contacts from the flight for tracing, including five with intensive exposure who assisted the woman. About 50 others seated nearby face passive monitoring with daily temperature checks. Two passengers who developed symptoms tested negative, while results for others, including the flight attendant, remain pending.

Separately, France's health ministry reported one French national among eight contacts from the St. Helena-Johannesburg flight, none of whom were on the cruise, developed mild symptoms and entered isolation for testing. The rest received offers for isolation and screening from regional agencies.

The MV Hondius outbreak, which began during a voyage from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 carrying 147 people from 23 countries, has produced eight confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases and three deaths, including the woman's husband and a German passenger. The ship, now en route to Spain's Canary Islands, saw evacuations in Cape Verde and elsewhere. Cases have surfaced in South Africa, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the U.S., U.K., and Denmark.

The World Health Organization noted rare human-to-human transmission of Andes hantavirus requires close contact and predicted limited spread with proper measures. 'Given the incubation period of up to six weeks, more cases may emerge,' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebrechus said Thursday, but emphasized it poses low pandemic risk, unlike respiratory viruses.

KLM expressed condolences and is cooperating with health officials. No further transmissions from flight contacts have been confirmed as of Thursday evening.