Hantavirus-Hit Cruise Ship Passengers Repatriated

Passengers and crew of the MV Hondius, a cruise ship hit by hantavirus, are being repatriated from Spain’s Canary Islands. Up to 150 people have started flying home aboard military and government planes, according to multiple reports.

The complex operation involves passengers wearing blue medical suits and breathing masks as they disembarked onto smaller boats at a small industrial port in Tenerife. Evacuees then boarded Spanish army buses with protective boards separating drivers from passengers before being sprayed down by medical officers on the tarmac prior to boarding repatriation charter flights.

A chartered Titan Airways flight transported the MV Hondius passengers from the Canary Islands to Manchester airport on Sunday evening. The evacuation of passengers of all nationalities will be completed soon, with flights arriving from Australia and the Netherlands, according to Spain’s health minister.

The UK’s initial Covid quarantine site at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral,Merseyside, is being used to house 20 British passengers who were tested for hantavirus before boarding the flight. One German national, who is a UK resident, and one Japanese passenger are also being monitored there.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 45-day quarantine and “active follow-up,” including daily checks for symptoms such as fever. The 42-day quarantine can be carried out at a staffed facility or in isolation at home. Some health experts are concerned people may not strictly isolate for six weeks, but the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says his organization does not ‘force’ its guidance.

In the UK, passengers will undergo medical tests at Arrowe Park hospital near Liverpool and initially stay for 72 hours. Within a 72-hour period, the passengers are to receive clinical assessments and testing at the isolation facility, which has six floors of self-contained flats with their own bedrooms, en suite bathrooms, kitchen and lounge facilities.

Janelle Holmes, the chief executive of Wirral university teaching hospital NHS foundation trust, told the media that Arrowe Park would carry out “welfare checks on each individual”. She said: “There’s nobody being transferred to us that has been symptomatic in any way. There’s no impact on the hospital. Services are running as normal, patients should still attend their appointments.”

Holmes said that if passengers developed symptoms, they would be taken to Royal Liverpool university hospital, which houses the regional tropical and infectious diseases unit.

She said hantavirus was “very different” to Covid and that the risk to the general public was “really low”. She added: “You’ve got to have really, really close contact. It’s not like Covid or flu or those types of viruses.”

During the period passengers are at Arrowe Park, public health specialists will assess whether they can isolate at home or at another location, based on their living arrangements.

Those returning to the UK will stay in self-isolation for 45 days and will not be allowed to take public transport to their homes. During their isolation period, passengers will have daily contact with UKHSA health protection teams to check on their wellbeing and ensure they are supported to isolate safely.

The public health minister, Sharon Hodgson, said: “None of the passengers are symptomatic, but we will monitor them closely over the next 72 hours at the hospital, as part of a precautionary isolation period. With no cases or symptoms among them and both our stringent monitoring and isolation measures, the risk to the public remains extremely low.”

In Australia, passengers will be taken by ambulance to a hospital in Sydney’s west designed to treat patients with high-consequence infectious diseases such as Ebola. France has placed all its evacuees, including one who is symptomatic, in strict isolation until further notice.