Twenty-two people evacuated from the MV Hondius are set to start leaving Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral after spending 72 hours in isolation since returning to the UK.
The group includes 20 British nationals, one German national who lives in the UK and one Japanese passenger. They have been staying in flats with food and other essentials provided while public health and infectious disease specialists decide whether they can go home to self-isolate or need another place to stay. A further 10 passengers and crew members are being brought to the UK from Saint Helena and the Ascension Islands as a precaution.
The move comes after a fast-moving response to an outbreak tied to the cruise ship, which began its journey on 1 April in Ushuaia, Argentina, with about 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries onboard. The MV Hondius later docked in Spain's Canary Islands last week with 87 passengers and 60 crew members aboard, as health officials worked through the people who had been exposed.
Prof Robin May said earlier this week that those at Arrowe Park Hospital were healthy and asymptomatic. The UK Health Security Agency said the NHS in England was well equipped to respond if the 10 people now being returned from the islands become unwell. The wider picture remains serious: three people have died since the outbreak, two of them confirmed to have had the virus, including an elderly Dutch man who died before being tested, his wife and a German woman.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday there was no sign of a larger outbreak starting, but he also warned that more cases might still appear. Two British nationals have already returned home on repatriation flights to the US, another British national is due to return to Australia, and two other Britons confirmed to have hantavirus are being treated in the Netherlands and South Africa. A British man with suspected hantavirus on Tristan da Cunha remains in isolation and in stable condition, while two more Britons are voluntarily self-isolating at home in the UK after disembarking at Saint Helena on 24 April.
For the people now leaving hospitals in Wirral, the next phase is not over. Anyone discharged is expected to isolate for another 42 days at home, a reminder that the immediate danger has eased but the watch on this outbreak has not.
