Australia charters flight to bring nationals home from hantavirus-stricken luxury cruise

Australia will repatriate four citizens and one permanent resident from the MV Hondius, the ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak, on a charter flight due to land in Perth on Tuesday.

The ship, carrying 146 people, arrived at Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, on Sunday morning after three people died of the virus and eight others became ill. Passengers and crew were confined to their cabins to help stop the spread of the virus.

An Australian government spokesperson said the group of five people would travel on the charter flight alongside medical personnel who will monitor them and provide assistance if needed. One New Zealand citizen will also travel on the plane.

The flight will leave Tenerife at 5pm, local time, on Monday, the last to leave the Canary Islands.

The Australians and permanent resident being repatriated live in New South Wales and Queensland, and the government is finalising quarantine arrangements, which will be the responsibility of the states to administer.

“The Australian government’s number one priority is the safety of passengers and the Australian community,” the spokesperson said. “The Australian government is working closely with state authorities to coordinate arrival, health and transport arrangements. Quarantine and health arrangements are managed by states in accordance with their public health requirements.”

The evacuated passengers will be prevented from coming into contact with the general public on landing in Perth and will be moved directly from the charter flight to transportation that will take them directly to their quarantine locations.

Murray Watt, the federal environment minister, told ABC News on Monday the event had obviously become a “terrible situation” for the Australian travellers, adding that proper quarantine arrangements would be in place.

“We want to make sure Australians receive the care that they need in this situation,” Watt told. “This is not a situation that people have walked into deliberately. And I think all Australians would want to see each other looked after in this sort of situation.”

Hantavirus, a group of viruses that are carried by rodents, can cause serious infection in humans, who are usually infected through contact with infected rodent urine, droppings or saliva. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that infection can cause a range of illnesses from severe disease to death.

But transmission between humans is rare and only seen in settings with close, prolonged contact. The WHO noted recently that the threat to the global population remained low, and the Australian Centre for Disease Control said the risk of a widespread outbreak such as Covid-19 or influenza remained very low.