First passengers disembark the hantavirus-hit cruise ship

An Australian government-supported flight will depart the Canary Islands and land in Perth tomorrow, with six ‌passengers bound for Australia including four citizens, a permanent resident and a New Zealand citizen. Another flight from ‌New Zealand will take ‌18 passengers, with both flights ‌also ​taking ⁠passengers from other countries which did not send their own ⁠repatriation flights, officials have said.

The arrangement is caused by a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius, which has claimed three lives and triggered a massive international repatriation and quarantine operation. The vessel is currently anchored off the coast of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. More than 90 of the nearly 150 passengers and crew are being evacuated and flown back to their home countries as of Sunday and Monday.

Health authorities confirmed the presence of the Andes virus, a rare strain of hantavirus that is uniquely capable of limited human-to-human transmission through close, prolonged contact. Spanish health minister Monica Garcia says all those onboard a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship were ‘asymptomatic’ after it arrived in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on Sunday. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms, authorities say, and be taken off the ship only once evacuation flights are ready to fly them to their destinations.

Evacuating the cruise ship will be a long and complex operation that will stretch into the next day, according to Spain’s health minister. The ship’s 149 passengers and some crew members will be brought to shore using either small, inflatable “Zodiac” boats, which take a maximum of five passengers, or slightly larger launch boats that hold 10 people. All of their luggage will need to remain on board.