Australia to fly citizens home from virus-hit cruise ship, plans quarantine

Spain, France and the US have also evacuated their citizens from the MV Hondius near Tenerife

Australia will charter a flight to ‌evacuate its citizens from a Dutch-flagged luxury cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with returning passengers quarantined on arrival, the government said on Monday.

Eight people no longer on the MV Hondius have ​fallen ill, according to a World Health Organisation tally from Friday, of which ​six are confirmed to have contracted the virus. Three have died, a ⁠Dutch couple and a German national.

Environment Minister Murray Watt said four Australians, one ​resident of Tenerife and one resident of New Zealand, will be repatriated.

"This is being ​done via an Australian government-supported flight, and we expect those people to return to Australia soon," Watt told reporters in Canberra.

Health Minister Mark Butler told a news conference the returning passengers will be ​quarantined at a facility in Western Australia for a minimum of three weeks.

Read: Fact Check: Hantavirus infection is not a confirmed side effect of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine

"I ​want to stress that our primary responsibility as a government, obviously, is to keep our community ‌safe and ⁠healthy," he said.

"We also have a responsibility to those passengers, to bring them home and to protect them from any risk, no matter how small, of potentially transmitting the virus without knowing it."

New Zealand's Director of Public Health Corina Grey said in ​a statement on ​Monday that the country's ⁠health services had the capacity to support any quarantine measures if required.

Spain, France and the United States have evacuated their citizens from ​the MV Hondius, which has anchored near Tenerife, the largest ​of the ⁠Canary Islands, officials said. One U.S. citizen has tested positive for the virus, while another has mild symptoms.

The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers, while experts ⁠have urged ​calm, reminding the public scarred from the experience ​of the COVID-19 pandemic that this virus was far less contagious and posed little risk.