Australians and New Zealanders who were aboard the deadly hantavirus-hit cruise ship have been taken to the Netherlands after a last-minute change of plan on what the health minister called a “difficult” mission.
Once back in Australia they will undergo the first three weeks of a 42-day quarantine at the Centre for National Resilience in Bullsbrook, just outside Perth. The flight crew that brings them back to the country will also have to quarantine, either in Australia or at their home base in another country, Australia’s health minister, Mark Butler, said.
But the six people who had been travelling aboard the MV Hondius will first spend up to two days in the Netherlands, instead of returning direct from Tenerife.
They landed in the Netherlands on Tuesday morning, Australian time, on the first leg of a complex operation to repatriate them, Butler said. There they were greeted – at a safe distance – by the Australian ambassador, Greg Fench.
All were in “good health and relatively good spirits”, Butler said on Tuesday. But additional hantavirus cases that came to light overnight, including a French national who was in hospital in a critical condition, show there was “a relatively low risk [but] still a risk of transmission among the passengers of this cruise ship”, he added.
The passengers were taken to a quarantine hotel before a charter flight takes them to Australia later this week.
“This is a difficult arrangement to make,” Butler told ABC News on Tuesday morning.
“You’ve got to have crew that are willing to isolate at the end of the flight, you’ve got to have a flight that has some refuelling arrangements put in place between the Netherlands and Australia … And it’s important that we’ve put those quarantine arrangements in place, ready to go when they do land in Australia.”
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailThe government nevertheless expected the four Australians, one permanent resident and one New Zealand citizen to be back in Australia by the end of the week.
“They’re only able to stay in the Netherlands for a maximum of 48 hours. So, over the next 24 to 48 hours, we expect them to start their flight back to Australia,” Butler said.
Butler said he was confident the flight could be organised, though he didn’t rule out that it might require a military plane.
Medical personnel will be on board the flight, which is expected to land at RAAF Base Pearce in Perth, according to government advice.
The travellers will then be transported to quarantine facilities at the Centre for National Resilience in Bullsbrook, where they will isolate for the first three weeks of a 42-day quarantine period. The centre will be staffed by medical personnel from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin, which was set up in 2002 in response to the Bali bombing.
“It has very high experience in dealing with infectious disease emergencies and a range of other medical emergencies, both here in Australia and across the region,” Butler said.
Flight crew will also quarantine at Bullsbrook or in another country if they decide to immediately fly out, Butler said.
None of the passengers have displayed symptoms of hantavirus, and no other Australian citizens or permanent residents were known to be on board the ship.
Later, at a press conference, Butler said hantavirus had been listed under Australia’s Biosecurity Act, to allow him to make quarantine orders.
He said the orders “will ensure that Australians can all have confidence that there is no risk to the broader Australian community from this tragedy that’s happened on a cruise ship over the other side of the world”.
The World Health Organization has recommended but not mandated a 42-day quarantine for the travellers due to the long incubation period of hantavirus. The virus can cause flu-like symptoms leading to respiratory arrest and death in some cases.
Butler said Australia’s measures were “probably the strongest quarantine response of any country that is taking passengers back from this cruise ship”.
“Most countries are only requiring their returning citizens to go into some sort of centralised quarantine, like a hospital or a centre like the one we’re using in Western Australia, for two or three days,” he said.
Oceanwide Expeditions confirmed on Monday that all guests and some crew who had been on the ship had been either repatriated to their home countries or to the Netherlands. Twenty-five crew members remain on board, as does the body of a German guest who died on the ship on 2 May.
