In a precautionary measure, Australians who may have been exposed to the potentially lethal hantavirus will don full personal protective equipment (PPE) while traveling to Perth. Upon arrival, they will undergo a minimum three-week quarantine period, ensuring their safety and that of the wider community.
The situation arose from the ill-fated voyage of the Dutch cruise ship, MV Hondius, where 11 cases of hantavirus have been confirmed among its passengers and crew. Tragically, the virus has claimed the lives of three individuals: a Dutch couple and a German woman.
Australian Health Minister Mark Butler has reassured the public that six individuals, who are traveling under strict health protocols and in full PPE, are currently in good health and have tested negative for the virus.
“This is one of the most robust quarantine measures globally in response to the hantavirus outbreak,” Butler stated during a press briefing on Thursday. “Our agencies are actively monitoring the situation, and I am personally overseeing the efforts to ensure public safety.”
‘This is one of the strongest quarantine arrangements in response to this hantavirus outbreak (that) you will find anywhere in the world,’ he told reporters on Thursday.
‘Our agencies are, and certainly I am, monitoring this outbreak very closely.
‘The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has secured a suitable aircraft and crew to transport the four Australian citizens, the permanent resident and one New Zealand resident from the Netherlands to Australia.’
The plane is scheduled to leave the Netherlands about 5.30pm AEST on Thursday and land at RAAF Base Pearce, northeast of Perth, on Friday.
Six cruise passengers infected with hantavirus will be brought back to Australia on a flight to Perth while dressed in full PPE
Health Minister Mark Butler said the government has made necessary arrangements
Butler outlined the ‘very strict conditions’ on the flight, which have been cleared and approved by the Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
‘Australians can have high confidence that we are doing everything to ensure that this repatriation of those six passengers is undertaken completely safely,’ he said.
‘All passengers and all crew members will travel on this flight for its duration in full personal protective equipment (PPE).
‘Those passengers will be the subject of a quarantine order to remain at the Bullsbrook quarantine facility, one of the national resilience centres set up towards the end of the Covid pandemic.
‘The quarantine order remains in place for three weeks but will be reviewed during those three weeks to determine what should take place for the remainder of the 42-day period of potential incubation that the World Health Organisation has advised.’
The six passengers will spend at least three weeks in the 500-bed Centre for National Resilience in Bullsbrook, approximately 40km north-east of Perth.
They will then move into a home-based quarantine arrangement.
Butler said specialist staff have been deployed from the Darwin-based National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre to monitor the group.
There are 11 cases of hantavirus among the passengers and crew members on the liner
Pictured, MV Hondius cruise passengers arrive in The Netherlands on May 12
Six passengers repatriated to Australia will spend at least three weeks at an official isolation centre in Bullsbrook, northeast of Perth (Pictured, The Centre for National Resilience)
‘These are expert staff, well-experienced in infectious disease emergencies alongside a range of other emergencies that they serve the country for,’ he said.
Butler highlighted that Australia’s quarantine processes are significantly harsher than measures taken by other countries following the repatriation flights.
‘Many countries that are repatriating passengers from this cruise ship – the United States, 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,’ he said.
‘We have decided on a precautionary basis to take a stronger approach to that because our overriding priority is to keep the Australian community safe.’
Hantavirus, which can cause deadly lung damage and organ failure, is spread by rodents’ urine, droppings or saliva.
When the virus makes the jump from rodents to humans, which is rare, it is usually due to the inhalation of viral spores.
It is believed that the first victim of the virus may have been infected at a landfill site on the outskirts of Ushuaia, Argentina, a birdwatching spot popular with tourists – and overrun with scavenging rodents.
