{"id":668175,"date":"2026-05-13T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/668175\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:27:11","slug":"australia-secures-aircraft-to-bring-passengers-home-from-hantavirus-hit-cruise-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/668175\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia secures aircraft to bring passengers home from Hantavirus-hit cruise ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

A suitable aircraft has been secured and is expected to bring home Australian and New Zealand passengers from the Hantavirus-hit cruise ship, MV Hondius, by the end of the week.<\/p>\n

It comes after Federal Health Minister Mark Butler labelled the mission “difficult”, revealing the struggle to find a charter company and crew willing to operate the flight under strict quarantine requirements.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed the government was finalising necessary clearances and approvals for the journey back to Australia, but an exact journey date had not been confirmed.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Australian and New Zealand Passengers were evacuated to the Netherlands. (AP Photo\/Manu Fernandez)<\/p>\n

Five Australians and one New Zealander were evacuated from the ship and taken to the Netherlands on Tuesday, after a last-minute change of plan due to logistics.<\/p>\n

“These are complex arrangements given the distance between the Netherlands and Australia,” Mr Butler said on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

French passenger in critical condition<\/p>\n

Mr Butler confirmed a French national was in a critical condition and being treated with an artificial lung in a Paris hospital, after contracting the rodent-borne illness.<\/p>\n

Eleven cases have been reported in total<\/a>, nine of which have been confirmed.<\/p>\n

Three people on the Oceanwide Expeditions cruise have died, including a Dutch couple who health officials believe were exposed to the virus while visiting South America.<\/p>\n

The first passenger to die on the cruise was not tested for Hantavirus before their death, and remains an unconfirmed case.<\/p>\n

Quarantine on home turf<\/p>\n

Mr Butler said Australian and New Zealand passengers were “all in good health”<\/a> and “relatively good spirits” despite the experience.<\/p>\n

All six travellers are expected to be flown to the Royal Australian Air Force base Pearce in Perth later in the week, according to the Australian government.<\/p>\n

They will then be “transported immediately” to the nearby Bullsbrook quarantine centre, spending at least three weeks isolating during a 42-day quarantine stint recommended by the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

One of the family rooms at the Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience, which was built as a COVID quarantine facility. (November 2023) (Supplied: Lisa Castellas)<\/p>\n

Flight crew will quarantine alongside the travellers, where they will be cared for by staff brought in from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin.<\/p>\n

How other nations are approaching quarantine<\/p>\n

Mr Butler named Australia’s quarantine measures as the strongest of the two dozen countries repatriating passengers from the cruise ship.<\/p>\n

In the UK, the National Health Service said people will undergo medical tests at a hospital near Liverpool, staying for 72 hours, when arrangements for further isolation will be assessed.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Australian and New Zealand passengers will spend at least three weeks in quarantine. (AP Photo\/Arturo Rodriguez)<\/p>\n

Greece\u2019s health ministry confirmed a male evacuee will do 45 days in mandatory hospital quarantine in Athens, while 14 Spanish residents will be in biosafety isolation beds at a military hospital in Madrid.<\/p>\n

Seventeen Americans and one Briton who lives in the US will be flown to a quarantine facility at the University of Nebraska, where risk levels for spreading the virus will be assessed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group of 18 will be given the choice of staying in Nebraska or going home, where their condition will be watched by government health agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A suitable aircraft has been secured and is expected to bring home Australian and New Zealand passengers from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,45120,69,53891,31084,314457,137,2889,314459,87017],"class_list":["post-668175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cruise","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-global-health","tag-hantavirus","tag-health","tag-health-minister","tag-mv-hondius","tag-quarantine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}