Updated ,first published
Five Australians and a New Zealander will be held in a COVID-era quarantine facility outside Perth for three weeks, after possibly coming into contact with the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Word of their return comes as American and French passengers returned from the ship have tested positive for the virus. None of the people returning to Australia have shown symptoms. Three people who were on the ship have died after contracting the disease.
Addressing a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Health Minister Mark Butler said the quarantine period would cover half of the six-week incubation period associated with the virus. The government will seek advice from senior health officials throughout the quarantine on extending the patient’s stay.
“I want to emphasize that our primary responsibility, obviously, is to keep our communities safe and healthy. We also have a responsibility to those patients, to bring them home and protect them from any risk of potentially spreading the virus unknowingly, and these programs fulfill both roles,” Butler said.
Australia’s Health Protection Committee – which includes Commonwealth, district chief health officers – will order passengers to be isolated in a purpose-built facility that has remained open since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The returning passengers include four Australian citizens and permanent residents – three from New South Wales and two from Queensland – and a New Zealand citizen.
They will travel from Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory off Morocco’s Atlantic coast, to an RAAF base north of Perth before being transferred to nearby Bullsbrook Station for the National Resilience quarantine facility.
“These passengers will have to return home on a long journey from Tenerife, as opposed to just traveling to the UK, for example. Probably in a smaller plane with a greater risk of infection during the journey than would be the case traveling from Tenerife,” Butler said.
“Obviously, they’ve been stuck on the ship for almost two weeks now, and this is hanging over them, obviously this has been a very bad situation for all of them, and my sympathy goes out to them.”
In a late change on Monday in the Canary Islands (9pm Monday AEST) the Spanish government announced that Australians and New Zealanders will leave Tenerife on a flight bound for the Netherlands, the last trip to carry 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 confirmed that the flight – called an “Australian-backed flight” – would leave Tenerife at around 18:20 on Monday (3.20am Tuesday AEST) and would pass through the Netherlands and continue to Australia.
The journey to Australia is expected to take 48 hours and details will be subject to medical advice.
Butler said Australian staff assisting with passenger transport would adhere to “very clear protocols” regarding the use of personal protective equipment, and that he had “absolute confidence” in their ability to carry out the operation safely.
He said their return flights were a “complex operation” that required the participation of other countries, and plans were still being finalized.
Patients will be tested regularly for the virus; however, samples will need to be shipped to Melbourne, the only facility in the country that can handle the tests.
Butler said the NSW and Queensland governments had been advised about the return of cruise passengers to their states. Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls on Monday afternoon said passengers could be placed in further hospital quarantine upon arrival in the state after undergoing “psychological and physical health” checks.
News of the illness on the ship has raised fears of another outbreak of the virus, which the World Health Organization and the Australian government have ruled out.
Hanta virus is a family of viruses that are spread mainly by contact with rodents or their feces, and are not usually transmitted from person to person. Eight people on board the MV Hondius have been infected with the disease, with six infections appearing to have been contracted from two previous patients.
Professor Ben Marais, director of the Sydney Institute of Infectious Diseases, said the Andes strain discovered on the ship “has shown to be more infectious” than other hantaviruses.
However, he said the risk of infection is still low, and that the hantavirus “doesn’t compare to the COVID outbreaks”.
Marais said if we continue to “do the basic things well, this should not spread further. But it is a warning that these things are with us”.
The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, initially tried to prevent the ship from docking amid fears that the passengers would remain on the island. He mentioned Australia and the Netherlands as two countries that are not moving fast enough to repatriate their citizens. The Spanish government reversed its decision on Saturday night.
One of the 17 American evacuees has tested positive for the virus, while the second has mild symptoms. The French traveler also started getting symptoms on their flight home.
Bullsbrook – a mission built for quarantine to be completed in 2022 at a cost of $400 million – has sat idle since its completion.
With David Crowe and the wire
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Nick Newling is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect through X or email address.
