Four Australian citizens and a permanent resident who travelled on a cruise ship at the centre of the deadly hantavirus outbreak will land in Perth on Friday, before enduring at least three weeks in quarantine. The cohort — and one New Zealand citizen — who were evacuated from the MV Hondius, were due to depart the Netherlands at 4pm AEST on Thursday after the government confirmed an aircraft and crew to fly them to WA had been locked in.
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“Foreign Affairs and Trade have also secured all of the necessary clearances and approvals to travel from the Netherlands to Perth,” Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said of the biosecurity operation on Thursday. “The six passengers are still in good health, they have all tested negative for hantavirus and are showing no symptoms as well,” Butler said. “All passengers and all crew members will travel this flight for its duration in full PPE.” The flight is due to land at RAAF Base Pearce, northeast of WA’s capital, on Friday.
Six travellers on the MV Hondius will be quarantined in Perth. The six passengers will spend at least three weeks in a largely unused 500-bed quarantine facility built in Bullsbrook during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, which has its headquarters in Darwin, have been deployed to Perth ready for the arrivals. Butler said these are “expert staff, well experienced in infectious disease emergencies alongside a range of other emergencies that they serve the country for”. “There are very strict conditions about the flight, about the landing and about the quarantine arrangements at Bullsbrook,” Butler said. “Australians can have very high confidence that we are doing everything to ensure that this repatriation of those six passengers is undertaken completely safely.”
Emergency Flight Costs
When asked about the cost of the repatriation flights, Butler said he will provide some detail “in due course”. There have been 11 confirmed hantavirus cases — including three deaths — from the cluster reported on the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, according to the World Health Organization.
