In Brief
- Six travellers and the crew transporting them home will quarantine at a purpose-built facility in Perth.
- They will be looked after by a Commonwealth team that specialises in trauma and infectious disease.
In Western Australia, preparations are in full swing at a quarantine facility as it readies to accommodate four Australians. These individuals are being repatriated from a cruise ship that has been struck by a hantavirus outbreak.
This quarantine center, which has largely remained unused since its establishment at the close of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now bracing for its first significant test. A total of six people, who may have been exposed to the dangerous hantavirus, are scheduled to stay there for a minimum of three weeks.
The outbreak occurred on the Dutch cruise ship, MV Hondius, during an expedition to some of the world’s most isolated islands. Last month, the journey was abruptly halted when the hantavirus, which is transmitted by rodents, resulted in three fatalities and eight infections. This incident has posed a challenge for governments worldwide as they strive to safely bring their citizens home.
While investigations are ongoing to trace the origins of the outbreak, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been working diligently to secure a suitable aircraft for the extensive journey from the Netherlands to Perth. Additionally, they had to find a flight crew willing to adhere to a 42-day quarantine following the mission.
On Wednesday, the federal government announced success in securing a plane, and all necessary clearances and permissions for the trip are currently being finalized.
Once they touch down in Perth, the four Australians plus one permanent resident, a New Zealander, and the flight’s crew will spend their quarantine period at the Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience, 40km north-east of Perth.
The purpose-built 500-bed quarantine facility was completed in 2022, at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is one of three of its kind in the country, equipped with specialised ventilation systems, and designed to ensure food and staff can move safely around the facility without risk of cross-contamination.
Every surface in the centre can be easily disinfected, and there are specialist medical facilities on site.
For the remainder of their quarantine period, the passengers of the MV Hondius will receive 24-hour care and be closely monitored for symptoms of the disease, which has a 30 to 50 per cent mortality rate.
Around the world
The Australian response stands in contrast to other countries’ approaches to the outbreak, where many asymptomatic passengers who were on board the ship are self-isolating at home.
Some 22 affected travellers from the United Kingdom will spend 72 hours in hospital before being sent home to self-isolate for a further 42 days.
Eighteen passengers have returned to the United States, including one travel blogger who has been documenting his time in quarantine.
Some of them are being screened at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in the city of Omaha, and two are in Atlanta, Georgia.
They will each receive individual care plans, which will require them to either self-isolate or remain at a facility.
In the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany, passengers will self-isolate, while Spain’s travellers will undergo medical quarantine.
In France — where one woman is in a critical condition after being diagnosed with the virus — patients are being placed in “strict isolation”.
The ship’s 38 Filipino crew members will undergo quarantine in the Netherlands.
Purpose-built facility, specialised care
Australian epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre from the University of New South Wales told SBS News it was better to be safe than sorry.
“This is a serious infection with a 30-50 per cent fatality rate, so supervised quarantine is more precautionary. With such a high death rate, it is better not to get it wrong when trying to prevent spread into the community,” she said.
Once they land, the travellers and crew will be looked after by staff from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC), based in Darwin.
“They’re very, very experienced and they’re the most suitable personnel to be sending to manage the quarantine,” she said.
The NCCTRC was established in 2004, following the Bali bombings two years earlier. MacIntyre said the centre had “lots of experience” in managing high-risk, dynamic situations, including infectious disease outbreaks.
She said the staff would be preparing for the travellers’ arrival.
“Say one of the people in quarantine gets a fever. Those people will have to assess them, test them, do all the things that need to be done to establish whether or not they’ve got the virus — that takes forward planning,” she said.
The public health expert said staff would also be preparing their personal protective equipment.
“I think they’d be upskilling themselves on hantavirus. It’s not something we see in Australia, so clinicians aren’t familiar with how it presents and how to manage it and so on.”
Public health ‘invisible’ when it’s a ‘success’
Costing $400 million, the facility has been referred to as a “white elephant” in Western Australian politics, given it has scarcely been used since it opened four years ago.
The total construction costs of the three centres — located in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth — were around $1.35 billion.
MacIntyre said this was the wrong way to think about the facility.
She said when public health was “a success”, it was “invisible” because a pandemic was averted or an infectious disease was stopped from spreading in the community.
“In this case, it’s the prevention of the spread of hantavirus in the community. Or it could be bird flu. It could be, you know, another pandemic or Ebola or something else. When it’s successful, you don’t see the effect.”
She said that was why — from a public health perspective — these facilities were important.
“That goes for everything we do for pandemic preparedness, including stockpiling of drugs and vaccines and masks and other things that we might need in an emergency — oxygen, hospital equipment and so on.”
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