{"id":576431,"date":"2026-05-10T13:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/576431\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T13:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T13:18:09","slug":"army-parachutes-onto-tristan-da-cunha-to-help-briton-with-suspected-hantavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/576431\/","title":{"rendered":"Army parachutes onto Tristan da Cunha to help Briton with suspected hantavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a month after the first death onboard the MV Hondius, the vessel has now arrived in Tenerife<\/a>, where authorities are helping more than 100 people disembark to be repatriated.<\/p>\n

Three people have died in the outbreak, including two who were confirmed to have had hantavirus. <\/p>\n

Hantavirus is a group of viruses carried by rodents. Most hantaviruses do not pass from person to person, but the Andes strain, identified in a number of people who had been on the Dutch cruise ship, does. <\/p>\n

The British man who lives on Tristan da Cunha disembarked on 14 April, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He reported having diarrhoea on 28 April and fever two days later. He is currently in a stable condition and is in isolation.<\/p>\n

A team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachuted on to Tristan da Cunha – an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean considered to be among the world’s most remote islands – having flown from RAF Brize Norton.<\/p>\n

Two of the paratroopers jumped in tandem with an intensive care nurse and intensive care doctor, who will provide help to the island, which usually has a two-person medical team.<\/p>\n

This is the first time the UK military has parachuted in medical personnel to provide humanitarian support, according to the MoD.<\/p>\n

They landed on the island’s golf course, according to a local government website, external<\/a>, with residents thanked for having “pulled out all the stops at short notice” to welcome the visitors.<\/p>\n

Officials added that 3.3 tonnes (3,300 kg) of medical supplies were also delivered for their hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost a month after the first death onboard the MV Hondius, the vessel has now arrived in Tenerife,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-576431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}