A New Zealander who was aboard the cruise ship at the centre of a hantavirus outbreak and was one of the passengers who disembarked has tested negative for the illness while in Taiwan.
In a statement, the Taiwan Centres for Disease Control said it was notified that the New Zealander, who had travelled on the MV Hondius in April, was staying in Taiwan.
"Taiwan CDC immediately initiated follow-up measures, assigned a medical officer to contact the passenger, and arranged, through local health authorities, for the passenger to undergo specimen collection at a hospital and remain hospitalised for observation on the same day."
It said blood, urine, saliva, and nasopharyngeal specimen tests all came back negative.
A spokesperson said the passenger was one of those who disembarked the ship on the Island of Saint Helena on April 24. They entered Taiwan on May 7 and reported "no physical discomfort or health abnormalities to date".
Considering expert recommendations and that the passenger was a "high-risk contact", the agency arranged for them to undergo an "enhanced self-health management” in a single hospital room, under the guidance of a medical team until June 6 – the end of the virus's incubation period.
"The passenger is required to measure body temperature daily for health monitoring and to observe good respiratory hygiene and hand hygiene."
The spokesperson said the World Health Organization had been notified, as well as a New Zealand representative in Taiwan.
"Taiwan CDC will continue to collect specimens weekly through the end of the enhanced self-health management period."
The group from the deadly outbreak aboard the MV Hondius will undergo three weeks’ isolation as global spread concerns linger. (Source: 1News)
The organisation emphasised that the passenger had tested negative and infection was "provisionally ruled out".
"The passenger will remain in the hospital under enhanced self-health management, and there is no risk to the local community.
"Taiwan CDC will continue to work with WHO and the New Zealand government on the appropriate response measures related to this passenger during their stay in Taiwan and reassures the public that there is no cause for concern."
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: "We are providing consular assistance to a dual national currently in quarantine in Taiwan.
"The person resides outside New Zealand and sought help from MFAT on Wednesday 13 May. For privacy reasons no further information will be provided."
Passengers arrive in Perth
Meanwhile, six passengers, among them a Kiwi, arrived Friday in Australia for a quarantine expected to last at least three weeks.
The Gulfstream long-range business jet carrying them from the Netherlands landed at RAAF Base Pearce outside the Western Australia state capital, Perth. The passengers, crew and a doctor who accompanied them were taken by bus to the nearby Bullsbrook quarantine facility.
Australian Health Minister Mark Butler said the government would implement one of the world's strongest quarantine responses to the outbreak.
He said passengers of the cruise ship MV Hondius who returned to the United States and most European countries would spend a few days in a quarantine centre before they were sent home.
"We have taken the decision to take a stronger approach to quarantine arrangements than that because we are determined to ensure there is no risk at all of any transmission of this virus into the Australian community,” Butler told reporters in his hometown of Adelaide.
The five Australians and one New Zealand citizen will spend the three-week quarantine period in the facility that had remained largely unused since it was built in 2022 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A decision had yet to be made on what precautions should be taken for the remainder of the 42-day period of potential incubation that the World Health Organization had identified, Butler said.
The six passengers, all of whom had tested negative for the virus before they left the Netherlands, had been assessed by a doctor during the flight and would undergo more detailed health assessments at Bullsbrook, Butler said.
In America, health officials transferred the two passengers who were originally sent to Atlanta to the National Quarantine Center in Omaha on Thursday. Nebraska Medicine spokeswoman Kayla Thomas said those two were medically cleared to move to the facility here at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, but she wouldn't say whether they tested negative.
Thomas said that health officials were comfortable bringing all the passengers here to Omaha now that no one is being treated in the hospital’s biocontainment unit. Initially, one of the passengers had been placed there after he tested positive on the ship, but he has since tested negative for hantavirus.
The MV Hondius ship was on a cruise from Argentina to the Antarctic and then to several isolated islands in the South Atlantic Ocean when the hantavirus outbreak was identified. Three people among the 11 cases from the ship have died.
With the evacuation of all passengers and many crew members completed, the MV Hondius is now sailing back to the Netherlands, where it will be cleaned and disinfected.
- Additional reporting by Associated Press
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