A flight carrying four Australians stranded for weeks on a hantavirus infected cruise ship is expected to land in Perth on Tuesday.
The four have been stuck on expedition cruise ship MV Hondius since an outbreak of the rare rat-borne virus which has killed three passengers and infected five others.
A New Zealand national and a permanent resident will also be on board the plane which will then head to the east coast where the Australian passengers are based.
A Government spokesperson said Communicable Diseases Network Australia had issued guidance on the health protocols to be observed by passengers and crew on the flight.
The spokesperson said measures would be put in place to ensure the evacuated passengers do not come into contact with the general population and were transferred directly from their charter flight to transportation that would take them to their quarantine locations.
The six were ferried from the ship in small boats on Sunday with more than 140 other passengers after the ship anchored off Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Passengers and crew left behind their luggage and were only allowed to take a small bag with essential items, a mobile, charger and documents.
Nobody was showing symptoms of the virus, Spanish authorities said.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, would remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it would undergo disinfection, according to the Spanish authorities.
The expected sailing time to Rotterdam is about five days.
The MV Hondius has been at the centre of an international health scare since Saturday, when WHO was informed that the rare disease — usually spread from infected rodents typically through urine, droppings and saliva — was suspected of being behind the deaths of three of its passengers.
As others fell ill, passengers and crew have been in isolation after Cape Verde authorities barred the ship from docking, and as health authorities scrambled to find a port that would take the Hondius. (Photo by AFP) Credit: –/AFP
The ship left Ushuaia in Argentina on April 1 and the first passenger died on April 11.
Earlier the head of the World Health Organisation tried to reassure residents of Tenerife, telling them the virus was “not another COVID”.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail towards your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID.”
Hantavirus spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings but the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people.