Australians to be quarantined for three weeks after travelling on hantavirus cruise
Updated ,first published
Five Australians and one New Zealander will be held for three weeks in a COVID-era quarantine facility outside Perth after potentially coming into contact with a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The news of the repatriation came after the American and French passengers sent back from the ship tested positive for the disease. No people returning to Australia showed symptoms. Three people on the cruise ship died after contracting the disease.
Speaking at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Health Minister Mark Butler said the quarantine period would cover half of the potential six-week incubation period associated with the virus. The government will seek advice from the country’s chief medical officers on extending the patient’s stay during the quarantine period.
“Frankly, I want to emphasize that our primary responsibility is to keep our communities safe and healthy. We also have a responsibility for these patients to bring them home and protect them from the risk of unknowingly transmitting the virus, and these regulations fulfill both of those responsibilities,” Butler said.
The Australian Health Protection Committee, which includes Commonwealth, state and territory chief health officers, will order travelers to quarantine at the purpose-built facility, which has remained empty since the COVID pandemic.
The returning passengers include four Australian citizens, one permanent resident, three from New South Wales and two from Queensland, and one New Zealand citizen.
They will travel from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, to an RAAF base north of Perth before being transferred to the nearby Bullsbrook National Resilience Center quarantine facility.
“These passengers will have to return home from Tenerife on a fairly long flight, unlike traveling solely to the UK, for example. Probably on a relatively small aircraft with a higher risk of transmission during transit than would be the case if traveling from Tenerife,” Butler said.
“Obviously they’ve been trapped on the ship for almost two weeks now, with the situation that’s been on them, it’s certainly been a really terrible situation for all of them and I sympathize with them.”
In a late change to the Canary Islands on Monday (around 9pm AEST on Monday) the Spanish government announced that Australians and New Zealanders would depart Tenerife on a flight to the Netherlands, the last flight carrying cruise ship passengers.
This appeared to replace an earlier plan for a plane chartered by the Australian government to collect passengers in Tenerife.
Sources in Canberra have confirmed that the so-called “Australian supported flight” will leave Tenerife at around 18.20 on Monday (03.20 AEST on Tuesday) and continue to Australia via the Netherlands.
The journey to Australia is expected to take 48 hours and details will be subject to health advice.
Butler said Australian staff helping to transport passengers would adhere to “very clear protocols” on the use of personal protective equipment and that he had “absolute confidence” that they could carry out the operation safely.
He said the return flights were a “complex operation” requiring the participation of other countries and that plans were still being finalized.
Patients will be tested regularly for the virus; but the samples will need to be flown to Melbourne, where the only facility in the country capable of performing the tests is located.
Butler said the NSW and Queensland governments had been consulted about the return of cruise passengers to their states. Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said on Monday afternoon that travelers could be placed in further hospital quarantine after undergoing “psychosocial and physical health” checks upon arrival in the state.
News of the illness on the ship revived fears of another viral infectious disease, which both the World Health Organization and the Australian government had suppressed.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread primarily through exposure to rodents or their feces and do not usually spread from person to person. Eight people on board MV Hondius were infected; Six infections appear to have been transmitted from two original patients.
Professor Ben Marais, director of the Sydney Institute of Infectious Diseases, said the Andean strain detected on the ship “has historically been shown to be more transmissible” than other hantaviruses.
But he said the risk of infection remains low and hantavirus is “hardly comparable to the COVID pandemic.”
“If we continue to do the basics well, this shouldn’t spread any further. But this is a warning that these are with us,” Marais said.
Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo initially tried to prevent the ship from docking out of concern that passengers would remain on the island. He described Australia and the Netherlands as two countries that did not act quickly enough to repatriate their citizens. The Spanish government reversed its decision on Saturday night.
One of the 17 Americans evacuated tested positive for the virus, while the second had mild symptoms. A French traveler also began developing symptoms on his way home.
Bullsbrook, a purpose-built quarantine facility completed in 2022 at a cost of $400 million, has remained idle since its completion.
David Crowe and strings
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Nick Newling is the federal politics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
