Six passengers from a cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have returned to Australia, after the government secured a flight for them. They will now spend three weeks in quarantine which is just short of the World Health Organization's recommended 42-day period.
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TRANSCRIPT
It's been a torrid few weeks for the passengers and crew of the MV Hondius, a luxury cruise ship that found itself in the middle of a hantavirus outbreak in April.
Thirty crew members remain on board the vessel.
WHO's acting director of epidemic threat management, Dr Maria Kerkhove, says they are bringing the ship to its final destination.
"The plan is for another health professional to board the boat. We believe it will be a nurse from the Netherlands to support the 30 remaining crew who will travel on to the Netherlands, which will take a few more days. And then once it docks in the Netherlands, there will be a full disinfection of the boat."
The passengers who had been on board the ship have all now been evacuated.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the WHO's Director-General.
"We can say confidently that this phase of the operation was successful... Almost 150 people from 23 countries were on this ship for weeks, in what must have been a very frightening situation.”
The Director says the World Health Organisation does not believe the hantavirus outbreak is the beginning of another COVID like epidemic.
"So far, 11 cases have been reported, including three deaths. All 11 cases are among passengers or crew on the ship... All suspected and confirmed cases have been isolated and managed under strict medical supervision, minimising any risk of further transmission. At the moment, there is no sign that we're seeing the start of a larger outbreak.”
But authorities have been taking no chances.
There are six locals caught up in the fray: four Australian citizens, one permanent resident and the other a New Zealander.
Australia's health minister Mark Butler says they have now been flown back to Australia from the Netherlands, landing in Perth under strict conditions.
"The six passengers are still in good health. They have all tested negative for hantavirus and are showing no symptoms as well. All passengers and all crew members will travel this flight for its duration in full PPE. There are very strict conditions about the flight, about the landing."
Dr Maria van Kerkhove says the World Health Organisation recommends a 42-day quarantine period once passengers are back home, with daily health checks.
"We are leaving this up to the countries themselves to actually develop their own policies. But our recommendations are very clear, and this is really a cautionary approach to make sure that we don't have any opportunities for this virus to pass from others.”
Mark Butler is happy to follow the WHO's advice.
He says the six will now spend time at a federal government-managed quarantine facility in the Perth suburb of Bullsbrook, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Many countries that are already repatriating passengers from this cruise ship - the US, the UK and others - are only subjecting their repatriated passengers to a managed quarantine arrangement at a hospital or at a centre like Bullsbrook, usually for two or three days, and then allowing those passengers to move into a home-based quarantine arrangement. We have decided on a precautionary basis to take a stronger approach to that."
He says Australia's quarantine protocols are deliberately tough.
"Which have been developed by our Centre for Disease Control and approved and endorsed over the last little while by our AHPC, the Australian Health Protection Committee - which is essentially the committee of all of the jurisdictional chief health officer, chaired by the Commonwealth Chief Health Officer. Australians can have very high confidence that we are doing everything to ensure that this repatriation of those six passengers is undertaken completely safely."
