Plane sent to bring Brits home from hantavirus cruise MV Hondius stacked with oxygen over health fears

The plane chartered by the Government to bring Brits home from the MV Hondius cruise ship will be equipped with testing kits as well as oxygen in case any of them fall ill, it's been revealed. Twenty-two Brits remain on the ship, which has been hit by an outbreak of hantavirus, as two have now been evacuated. Of the seven that disembarked at St Helena in the South Atlantic, two are in the UK self isolating, four are doing the same in St Helena, and the seventh has now been traced and is in another undisclosed country where they are self-isolating. They will be required to self-isolate when they get back to the UK, which could be at their home or another form of accommodation, depending on their personal circumstances. A government spokesperson said: “Through our consular teams we are in touch with all 22 of the passengers who remain. We're messaging and daily with information about the journey and what will happen to them when they reach the Canary Islands.” A third British national has suspected hantavirus linked to the outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius. The patient stayed on Tristan da Cunha, a remote Atlantic island where the ship stopped in mid-April. It was heading for the Canary Islands tonight with around 140 passengers and crew aboard. According to the Spanish Government, it is due to arrive early on Sunday and will be held in a 'completely isolated, cordoned off area'. Virginia Barcones, Spain's head of emergency services said: "The people of the Canary Islands, the men and women living there, can rest assured that there will be absolutely no possibility of contact at any time." Around 24 British passengers will then return home on a plane chartered by the UK Government. The US is also sending a plane to bring home the 17 US citizens on board the Dutch-flagged cruise ship. Two other British men have confirmed cases. The World Health Organization stressed that the risk from the outbreak to the wider public was low. A KLM flight attendant tested negative after their plane was briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger. Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman, said on Friday that the result should prevent any panic. "The risk remains absolutely low," he said of the virus outbreak. This is not a new Covid." Five cases of hantavirus have been confirmed, including one of the three cruise passengers who died. As new cases emerge globally, the search is on for anyone who has been in contact with the passengers who left the ship earlier in the voyage around the South Atlantic. Although none of the remaining Britons are currently displaying symptoms, they will be asked to isolate upon returning home. The two Irish passengers on board are also 'safe and well', according to the Irish Foreign Minister. Brit Martin Anstee, 56, retired police officer and an expedition guide on board, was evacuated to the Netherlands alongside a 41-year-old Dutch crew member and a 65-year-old German. Martin told the BBC that he was "fine". Two other Brits are already self-isolating at home for 45 days in the UK after potential exposure. They are doing so voluntarily and have no symptoms. According to operator Oceanwide Expeditions, a group of 29 guests from a dozen nations - including seven Britons - left the ship at St Helena on 24 April. Hantavirus is usually spread by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and is usually not easily transmitted between people. The Andes virus implicated in the cruise ship outbreak may spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure. No on still aboard the ship is showing symptoms of infection. Health authorities across four continents are tracking and monitoring passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. It is believed the infection came from rats in Argentina when a group went bird watching during a stop there in April. On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship. It wasn't until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said. The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital but tested negative. The cruise passenger briefly aboard that flight - a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship - was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died. The Dutch public health service is contract tracing on passengers from the flight who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.