Australians to be quarantined for three weeks after travelling on hantavirus cruise
Five Australians who potentially came into contact with a deadly hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean will be held for three weeks in a specially built quarantine facility outside Perth.
Three people from New South Wales and two from Queensland will fly from Tenerife to RAAF Pearce base north of Perth, Health Minister Mark Butler said on Monday. They will then be transferred to the nearby Bullsbrook National Resilience Center quarantine facility.
Butler said the group will initially be retained for a three-week period, with a possible extension. The incubation period of the disease is six weeks.
“We’ve taken a precautionary approach here and put in place a three-week quarantine order, at least initially. Obviously, we’ll be following recommendations on what should happen beyond those three weeks,” Butler said.
The minister said the Albanian government is going harder than other countries, imposing quarantine periods as short as two or three days in hospitals and private homes.
“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.
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.
The World Health Organization confirmed last week that three people on the ship died of the disease.
Professor Ben Marais, director of the Sydney Institute of Infectious Diseases, said the Andean strain detected on the MV Hondius “has historically been shown to be more transmissible” than other hantaviruses.
But he said the risk of infection remains low and that hantavirus is “almost incomparable to the COVID pandemic” at this point.
“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.
The Bullsbrook facility, a purpose-built quarantine facility completed in 2022 at a cost of $400 million, has remained idle since its completion. It was discussed as a potential prison by the Western Australian government last month.
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Nick Newling is the federal politics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
