By Renju Jose and Lucy Craymer
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – Australia will charter a flight to evacuate its citizens from a Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with returning passengers expected to be quarantined on arrival, the government said on Monday.
Eight people no longer on the MV Hondius have fallen ill, according to a World Health Organization tally from Friday, of which six are confirmed to have contracted the virus. Three have died, a Dutch couple and a German national.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said four Australians, one resident of Tenerife and one resident of New Zealand will be repatriated.
“This is being done via an Australian government-supported flight, and we expect those people to return to Australia soon,” Watt told reporters in Canberra.
“Quarantine arrangements are being finalised as we speak with the states and territories.”
It was not known if any of the people being brought to Australia have fallen ill or were showing symptoms of the virus. The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request seeking more details.
New Zealand’s Director of Public Health Corina Grey said in a statement on Monday that the country’s health services had the capacity to support any quarantine measures if required.
Spain, France and the United States have evacuated their citizens from the MV Hondius, which has anchored near Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, officials said. One U.S. citizen has tested mildly positive to the virus, while another has mild symptoms.
Spain’s health minister said the final two evacuation flights, one from Australia and another from the Netherlands, would depart on Monday afternoon local time.
The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers, while experts have urged calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this virus was far less contagious and posed little risk.
The virus, usually spread by rodents but transmissible person-to-person in rare close contact, was first detected on May 2 in Johannesburg in a British man who fell ill, 21 days after another passenger had died.
After the outbreak was detected, the vessel left for Spain on Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde, having sailed from the southern tip of Argentina across the South Atlantic to the Cape Verde islands.
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney and Lucy Craymer in Wellington; Editing by John Mair and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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