UK to fly 22 Britons from hantavirus ship home to UK this weekend | UK | News

Around 22 British passengers and crew on a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak are expected to arrive in Tenerife on Sunday in the hope of flying them back to the UK the same day. Officials from the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) and the Foreign Office will greet the MV Hondius when it docks in the Canary Islands, and Britons on board will be tested for hantavirus before disembarking.

If people test negative and are asymptomatic, they will be taken directly to a special repatriation flight in the hope that they will be sent back to the UK on the same day. This flight will be staffed by medical professionals and will carry equipment and medicine in case people get sick. The ship is currently sailing on a route off the coast of Cape Verde and is on track to dock in Tenerife on Sunday, depending on weather conditions. The majority of returning Britons are expected to self-isolate at home, but the UKHSA is making arrangements for people to stay in other facilities if this is not possible. It was stated that these details will be announced at a later date. 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.

Seven Britons disembarked at St Helena on 23 April, while Tristan, the British man with suspected hantavirus, also left the ship at Cunha.

The two Brits who left the ship in St Helena have returned to the UK and are self-isolating in the UK but have no symptoms.

Four Britons remain on St Helena and another Briton was traced and located in an unnamed country outside the UK.

Anyone who had been in contact with the British nationals who abandoned the ship is being traced and contacted by the UKHSA, but there is no indication of how many people were involved.

The Foreign Office is in daily contact with the 22 British passengers and crew on board and answers their questions. There are no symptoms of hantavirus at this time.

It is understood that anyone on the ship who showed symptoms before disembarkation will be treated in the Canary Islands.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UKHSA team are in Tenerife to disembark the passengers.
Britons returning to the UK will not be allowed to travel home using public transport to self-isolate.

They will remain in isolation for 45 days and self-test. Additional tests will be performed once the 45-day isolation period ends.

UKHSA experts are still investigating the spread of the virus among humans; previous outbreaks suggest that people must be in close contact and that most transmission occurs when people have symptoms.

Authorities do not believe the current strain on the ship is more contagious than previous cases, but efforts to investigate the virus continue.

So far nine confirmed cases of hantavirus, including two British men, have been linked to a cruise ship; The suspected case was in a British man. While five of the nine cases were confirmed to be hantavirus, four were stated to be suspected cases.

The remote islands of St Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha lie in the South Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Africa and South America.

Around 30 people are known to have left the cruise ship when it docked at St Helena in late April; Among them is a Dutch woman who fell ill during the trip and died.

A total of three people died due to the epidemic.
In a statement on Friday, the UKHSA said: “UK Government staff will be on site to support the disembarkation of British nationals.

“British passengers and ship crew who show no symptoms of hantavirus will be escorted to an airport by UK Government staff and given free passage back to the UK.”

It was stated that Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and UKHSA teams will continue to support all passengers.

The statement said: “UKHSA is working with partners to ensure the flight operates under strict infection control measures.
“Public health and infectious disease experts from the UKHSA and the NHS will be on board to monitor British nationals during the flight to ensure preventive measures are in place and to provide any care should any passengers become ill during the flight.

“Follow-up is currently ongoing for people who have been in contact with cases and have since returned to the UK or been in the UK Overseas Territories.

The 69-year-old British man, who was disembarked with symptoms, is currently receiving intensive care treatment at a private healthcare facility in Sandton, Johannesburg, and is said to be improving.

Another Briton, Martin Anstee, 56, was disembarked on Wednesday and flown to the Netherlands to receive specialist medical care. It’s improving too.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that morale on board had improved since the ship began its voyage to Tenerife.

It was stated that there were two doctors on board, as well as infectious disease experts from the World Health Organization and the European Disease Center.

Prevention and Control (ECDC), which conducts medical assessment of all passengers and crew.

Although the risk to the public is low, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there may be more cases due to the incubation period of the Andean virus, a type of hantavirus linked to the outbreak.

Experts believe that the incubation period of the virus in the human body can be up to six weeks.

The outbreak was linked to a birdwatching trip two passengers took in Argentina before boarding the ship.

It came after Spanish Health Minister Javier Padilla reported that a suspected hantavirus case was found in Alicante.

According to El Pais newspaper, the incident involved a passenger who was on the same plane as the patient who died in Johannesburg.

Professor Sir Peter Horby, Director of the Institute of Pandemic Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “I believe that the UKHSA, the Foreign Office and the NHS took all the correct and necessary measures to protect the UK citizens involved in this challenging incident and the wider UK population.

“Repatriation and isolation is the morally and scientifically right thing to do.”