6 passengers from hantavirus-hit ship arrive in Australia for 3-week quarantine

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Six passengers from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak arrived Friday in Australia for a quarantine expected to last at least three weeks.

The Gulfstream long-range business jet carrying them from the Netherlands landed at RAAF Base Pearce outside the Western Australia state capital, Perth. The passengers and crew were to be moved to the nearby Bullsbrook quarantine facility.

Australian Health Minister Mark Butler said Thursday the government would implement “one of the strongest quarantine arrangements in response to this virus outbreak you’ll find anywhere in the world.”

The five Australians and one New Zealand citizen are expected to spend the three-week quarantine period in the facility that had remained largely unused since it was built in 2022 is response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A decision had yet to be made on what precautions should be taken for the remainder of the 42-day period of potential incubation that the World Health Organization had identified, Butler said.

Butler said passengers of the cruise ship MV Hondius who returned to the United States and Britain would spend most of their quarantine periods at home.

The six passengers all tested negative for the virus before they left the Netherlands and none had displayed symptoms, Butler said.

Three people among the 11 cases in the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship have died.

The ship was on a cruise from Argentina to the Antarctic and then to several isolated islands in the South Atlantic Ocean when the outbreak was identified.

With the evacuation of all passengers and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.