Six passengers from a cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak are due to arrive at an air base in Perth tomorrow, before being transferred to a quarantine facility.
The passengers are symptom-free, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said.
The four Australian citizens, one Australian permanent resident and one New Zealand citizen were evacuated earlier this week from the MV Hondius cruise ship, where cases of the severe respiratory illness were detected.
The passengers arrived in the Netherlands on Tuesday.
Mr Butler said a repatriation aircraft was due to take off from the Netherlands at 5.30pm AEST and fly to RAAF Air Base Pearce, landing sometime on Friday.
The passengers will then be transferred to the nearby Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience, approximately 40 kilometres north-east of Perth, to quarantine.
“There is a PCR test for hantavirus and they have tested negative, I can also indicate they are all symptom-free,” Mr Butler said.
“We’re pretty confident they’re getting onto the plane without the virus, certainly without symptoms, but they will be subject to testing when they arrive in Australia, and they will be in full PPE during the duration of the flight.”
Mr Butler said the passengers would be quarantined for at least three weeks.
Mark Butler says the six passengers being repatriated to Australia are due to arrive in Perth on Friday. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
“[That] will be reviewed during those three weeks to determine what should take place for the remainder of the 42-day period of potential incubation the World Health Organisation has advised,” he said.
Critical care staff sent to Bullsbrook
Additional resources and personnel have been sent to the Commonwealth quarantine facility in Bullsbrook, which was established during the COVID pandemic.
The five Australians and one New Zealander will be quarantined for at least three weeks at the Bullsbrook facility. (ABC News)
“Staff deployed from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, which is headquartered in Darwin, those staff have been deployed to Bullsbrook ready to receive those passengers tomorrow,” Mr Butler said.
“These are expert staff, well-experienced in infectious disease emergencies alongside a range of other emergencies.”
Hantavirus ship passengers headed to Perth’s COVID ‘white elephant’
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said 11 cases of hantavirus have been detected so far in the current outbreak, with three deaths.
The latest two confirmed cases were reported in France and Spain, along with one inconclusive result for a case in the United States, all of them passengers of the MV Hondius.
Mr Butler maintained the hantavirus was “very rarely” transmitted between humans.
What is hantavirus?Hantavirus is a rare rodent-borne disease usually spread through contact with rodent urine, droppings or saliva.Symptoms can initially resemble the flu before progressing to serious respiratory or kidney complications, with some forms of the disease carrying high fatality rates.Health authorities say the global outbreak risk is low, but investigations are continuing into how the virus spread on the Dutch expedition cruise ship MV Hondius.
“All of the cases that have been reported thus far, and all of the evidence previously about hantavirus, shows that it requires very close contact between two humans to be transmitted,” he said.
“But obviously our agencies and certainly I am monitoring this outbreak very, very closely.”