Six people who were aboard a cruise ship at the centre of a hantavirus outbreak have been ordered into an extended quarantine in Perth.
The group – including four Australian citizens, a permanent resident and a New Zealander – were on Thursday just days away from ending their quarantine at the Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience, but will now have to stay another month.
The quarantine facility, built at a cost of $400million toward the end of the Covid pandemic and hardly used, is next door to the Pearce RAAF Base in Perth’s outer northern suburbs.
The six solitary occupants of the massive facility were due to end their quarantine for hantavirus on June 3 after they had landed at the Pearce base on May 15 on a government charter flight from Europe.
Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed on Thursday afternoon they will remain in quarantine until June 23, because there is still a risk they could develop the virus.
His announcement follows the World Health Organisation confirming another two people from the cruise ship MV Hondius had just tested positive.
They are one crew member and one passenger, from Spain and the Netherlands, and they bring the total number of hantavirus cases stemming from the ship to 13.
Three of those patients have sadly died from the disease.
Mark Butler (above) announced the six people quarantining in Perth after being exposed to hantavirus will spend longer in isolation
The group will now end their quarantine at Perth’s Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience (above) on June 23
‘Over the last few days there have been two additional reports of hantavirus infections connected with this cruise ship on the weekend,’ Butler said.
‘It would be appropriate for that quarantine arrangement to remain in place for the rest of the 42-day incubation period to June 23.’
Butler said the group of six were aware of the extended quarantine and remained in good health.
‘They’ve only been tested again in the last 24 or 36 hours or so and all six have again tested negative,’ he said.
‘But the cases overseas and the advice, not just of our public health officials but of the World Health Organization, indicate the risk of testing positive sometime into the future during that 42-day incubation period has [not] completely passed.’
The extension means the group will spend a total of 39 days in isolation at the Perth facility.
Hantaviruses are a group of diseases usually spread by rodents.
Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people.
The group of six (pictured leaving the Netherlands) arrived at the Perth quarantine facility on May 15
The MV Hondius docked in the Port of Rotterdam on May 19 following the outbreak
A passenger from the cruise is disinfected as they disembark from the ship
However, the strain detected on the ship has been able to spread between people in rare cases.
Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
No human cases have ever been recorded in Australia.
