A Kiwi onboard a cruise ship that has been hit by the hantavirus is expected to quarantine in Australia as they – and Australian travellers – are the last to be evacuated.
Passengers on the MV Hondius cruise ship have started to disembark marking a long and complex evacuation process that will see 149 passengers and crew ferried to shore on small boats, then flown to their home countries.
The ABC reports that a group of four Australians and one permanent resident, as well as one New Zealander on board the ship will be among the last to disembark, due to the length of time it will take for their repatriation flight to arrive from Australia.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the New Zealander would be transported aboard an Australian government-supported flight due to depart Tenerife for Perth on Monday.
A department spokesperson said – while exact details were being finalised – they expected the New Zealander would undergo quarantine when they arrived in Australia.
New Zealand health officials would not confirm that, but Dr Corina Grey, director of public health at the Ministry of Health, said in a statement discussions were ongoing regarding options to repatriate the New Zealander, in collaboration with international partners.
Grey told Checkpoint that officials do have powers to force someone with a notifiable disease such as hantavirus into quarantine, but the New Zealander was being “very cooperative”.
She would not confirm what Australian officials have said regarding plans for the New Zealander to quarantine in Australia.
“It’s a complex situation, so the situation is evolving, but we can provide more detail as the situation evolves.”
She said health officials had been in touch with a second New Zealander who was on-board, but had disembarked earlier, and they did not have plans to re-enter New Zealand.
Audio from “Passengers evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship” from Morning Report by Radio New Zealand.
She reasserted that the health risk to New Zealanders remained low, and the virus was not generally transmissible from person to person.
Should anyone from the MV Hondius need to return to New Zealand for quarantine, public health was “very well-placed” to support them, she said.
Reuters correspondent Victoria Waldersee told Morning Report passengers clad in protective gear were taken off the ship in small boats grouped by nationality and brought to the shore of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
They were then transported by military buses to the airport which was a 10 minute drive away and put on planes provided by their respective governments to take them back to their home country, she said.
The process was designed to ensure there was no contact with any members of the public and passengers were only taken off the boat when their evacuation plane had arrived.
Most people had already been evacuated but the flight to Australia which will also carry the passenger from New Zealand is not set to arrive until tomorrow evening, she said.
The other one to leave tomorrow is a flight from the Netherlands which will take passengers from a host of different countries whose governments had not provided a plane, Waldersee said.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship before the outbreak was declared have been confirmed to have been infected with hantavirus.
One of five French people flown back to France is showing symptoms of hantavirus, the French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said.
Audio from “Officials look to repatriate Kiwi onboard cruise ship” from Checkpoint by Radio New Zealand.
“One of them showed symptoms in the repatriation plane,” he posted on X. “These five passengers have immediately been placed in strict isolation until further notice.
“They are getting medical treatment and will have tests and a medical check-up,” he added.
The jet carrying the evacuated French cruise ship passengers landed a little before 4.30pm Sunday local time at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, AFP journalists saw.
Shortly afterwards, they were transferred to a convoy of five ambulances and taken under police escort to the Bichat hospital in Paris.
The World Health Organisation has recommended that people evacuated from the cruise ship should quarantine for at least 42 days of quarantine either at home or in hospital and daily health checks.
But the actual quarantine process is being managed by each individual country, Waldersee said.
Health officials sought to reassure Tenerife locals that the evacuees would not come into any contact with the island’s population and informed them that hantavirus was only transmissible between humans who had very close contact.
The Ministry of Health’s director of public health Dr Corina Grey, said discussions were ongoing regarding options to repatriate a New Zealander on board the cruse ship.
Health authorities and consular officials were in close contact with the New Zealander to provide support and advice, Grey said.
New Zealand’s public health services were well positioned to support anyone returning to New Zealand following possible exposure to Hantavirus, Grey said, including quarantine if needed.
“Our focus is on supporting this individual and protecting the public from any public health threat. We will take steps necessary to protect public health, but it is important to note the risk to the New Zealand public remains low.”
Hantavirus was not Covid-19, Grey said, and while it could be severe it was not easily transmissible from human to human.
– RNZ / ABC/ AFP / Reuters
