British passengers on hantavirus-hit cruise ship to isolate at UK Covid-quarantine hospital
British passengers on a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak will be deported back to the UK, where they will be transferred to an isolation facility at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral.
The Merseyside hospital emerged as the country’s first quarantine site for British citizens returning from Wuhan, China, at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in January 2020.
22 British citizens, both passengers and crew of the MV Hondius, are expected to arrive in Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, this Sunday.
Officials from the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) and the Foreign Office will meet the ship after docking.
Britons on board will be tested for hantavirus before being allowed to disembark.
Those who test negative and show no symptoms will then be transported to the UK on a special repatriation flight staffed by medical professionals. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Saturday that there were currently no symptomatic passengers on board.
Emergency services in north-west England said they expected passengers to be kept in a “managed environment” for up to 72 hours.
Public health experts will then evaluate whether they can isolate at home or another appropriate location based on their living arrangements.
Britons returning to the UK will self-isolate for 45 days and will not be allowed to travel home by public transport.
A joint statement from NHS England North West, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board, Merseyside Police, North West Ambulance Service and Wirral Council said: “Organisations in Cheshire and Merseyside are working closely with colleagues from the UK Health Security Agency and other government bodies to support the repatriation of passengers from the MV Hondius.
“On arrival they will be taken to a managed setting for clinical assessment and testing, in line with advice from the UK Health Safety Agency. “We expect this initial stay to be up to 72 hours.
“Public health experts will then evaluate whether they can isolate at home or another appropriate location based on their living arrangements.
“The risk to the general population remains very low.”
There have been six confirmed cases of hantavirus linked to the MV Hondius ship, and four patients are currently in hospital, WHO said.
He added that a total of eight cases, including three deaths, were reported, while one suspected case was reclassified after testing negative for hantavirus.
The UN agency has sought to reassure “anxious” Tenerife residents that they will not encounter passengers of a hantavirus-hit cruise ship about to dock on their island.
In a letter to the people of Tenerife, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he knew residents were “concerned”.
He said the virus was “serious” but the outbreak “is not another Covid” and “the current public health risk from hantavirus remains low.”
He added: “Spain’s authorities have drawn up a careful, step-by-step plan: passengers will be ferried from the industrial port of Granadilla to the coast in sealed, protected vehicles, along a completely cordoned off corridor, away from residential areas, and sent directly back to their home countries.
“You won’t meet them, your families won’t meet them.
“Nearly 150 people from 23 countries have been at sea for weeks, some grieving, all afraid, all longing for home.
“Tenerife was chosen because it has the medical capacity, infrastructure and humanity to help them reach safety.”
Two British men are currently being treated for hantavirus in the Netherlands and Johannesburg, South Africa, while a third British man with symptoms is being cared for on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha.
The Foreign Office said a total of 30 passengers and crew on the MV Hondius were British, with 22 still on board.
The outbreak was linked to a birdwatching trip two passengers took in Argentina before boarding the ship.
