Hantavirus Outbreak Cruise Ship: Britons Begin Isolation After Tenerife Evacuation

Twenty British nationals evacuated from the cruise ship MV Hondius began a period of monitored isolation in northwest England on Sunday night after arriving from Tenerife on a chartered government flight, as health authorities continued efforts to contain an outbreak of the Andes strain of hantavirus linked to the vessel.

The group was transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside after landing at Manchester Airport. UK health officials said the passengers would remain there for 72 hours before entering a further 42 days of self-isolation, most likely at home.

Professor Robin May, chief scientific officer at the UK Health Security Agency, said all of those brought back to Britain were healthy and showing no symptoms when they arrived.

The outbreak aboard the Dutch cruise ship has already resulted in three deaths. The World Health Organization has confirmed that two of those who died tested positive for hantavirus. Several infections have also been identified among passengers who left the ship and returned to their home countries.

Two British nationals receiving treatment in South Africa and the Netherlands have confirmed infections. Authorities have also reported positive cases involving an American and a French passenger who had previously disembarked and travelled home.

Unlike most forms of hantavirus, which are typically spread through contact with infected rodents and are not known to pass between people, the Andes strain identified in this outbreak can be transmitted from person to person. Health officials have repeatedly stressed that the wider public risk remains very low.

Passengers leaving the ship in Tenerife were seen wearing blue protective clothing as they boarded buses bound for the airport. They underwent testing before boarding the UK-bound flight.

The UKHSA said the repatriation effort had been coordinated with international partners to ensure the safe return of British nationals still on board the vessel.

Among those taken to Arrowe Park Hospital were one German national resident in the UK and one Japanese passenger. Officials said each case would be assessed individually before arrangements were made for home isolation.

May acknowledged the emotional toll the situation had taken on passengers, many of whom left behind most of their belongings during the evacuation.

“They’re going to be absolutely shattered,” Janelle Holmes, chief executive of Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust, said as the group arrived. She said the former passengers would stay in self-contained accommodation with specialist support teams available throughout their quarantine period.

If symptoms develop, patients will be transferred to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, home to the region’s Tropical and Infectious Diseases Unit.

Emergency services said the hospital trust continued to operate normally and that there was no additional risk to staff, visitors or other patients.

Elsewhere, concern remains focused on a British man in isolation on Tristan da Cunha, a remote island in the South Atlantic, where he is considered a suspected case. The Ministry of Defence said six British Army paratroopers and two medical clinicians had parachuted onto the island to assist local medical staff, marking what it described as the first military humanitarian medical deployment of its kind.

Two other Britons who left the ship earlier at St Helena on 24 April are voluntarily isolating at home in the UK.

The MV Hondius departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on 1 April carrying around 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries. During the voyage north through the South Atlantic, two passengers died and several others became seriously ill before the ship eventually reached Tenerife on 10 May.

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Some crew members and a Dutch nurse remain on board alongside the body of a passenger who died during the voyage. The vessel is expected to continue to Rotterdam, where health authorities say it will undergo disinfection as investigations into the outbreak continue.