Two Britons self-isolating in UK after leaving hantavirus cruise ship early - BBC

British passengers on a cruise ship with a confirmed outbreak of hantavirus will likely be asked to self-isolate for 45 days on returning to the country, a UK health official said.

Two Britons are self-isolating at home in the UK after potential exposure, and a 56-year-old British man is in a stable condition in the Netherlands after being evacuated from the ship on Wednesday.

Another British passenger, 69, was medically evacuated to South Africa where he remains in intensive care, and was said by officials to be "doing better".

Prof Robin May, UKHSA chief scientific officer, told the BBC that UK passengers would probably be asked to self-isolate at home, but that "depends on individual circumstances".

The MV Hondius is expected to dock in the Canary Islands at the weekend. Spain says officials are in advanced talks with the UK to send a repatriation flight for British nationals.

They include 19 current passengers and four crew members listed as British, according to Virginia Barcones, Head of Spain's Civil Protection and Emergencies.

Three people have died either on board or after travelling on the ship, which set sail from Argentina a month ago.

Officials have said that one of the three deceased is confirmed to have had the virus, while the other two deaths are under investigation.

Five cases were confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday, and it said more may follow due to the virus's six-week incubation period. All five cases were people who were on the ship.

The WHO called it a "serious incident" but said the risk to the public was low, stressing the outbreak was not similar to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contact tracing is under way in multiple countries for passengers who left the cruise ship before the outbreak was detected - including in the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Operator Oceanwide Expeditions said 30 people from a dozen nations - including seven Britons - disembarked from the ship at St Helena in the south Atlantic on 24 April.

It said the first confirmed case of hantavirus was not reported until 4 May and that all guests who disembarked the ship have been contacted.

Four of the British passengers remained in St Helena, two were self-isolating in the UK after flying back via Johannesburg, and the seventh passenger had not yet been traced, the UKHSA said.

The two Britons self-isolating in the UK are doing so voluntarily and do not have symptoms. They contacted health officials when they heard of the ship's cases.

The UKHSA said contact tracing was ongoing for anyone who may have sat next to them on the flight home.

Meanwhile, 56-year-old Briton Martin Anstee, a retired police officer and an expedition guide on board the MV Hondius, is in a stable condition in a hospital in the Netherlands.

He is one of three people evacuated from the ship on Wednesday for treatment, Oceanwide Expeditions said.

He told the BBC he was "fine". His wife, Nicola, told the Daily Telegraph it had been "a very dramatic few days".

"He's relieved to be off the ship. He had it quite mild then it got a bit more serious and now he's stable again.

"The fear with this virus is it can deteriorate very quickly so it's been a bit up and down for him. I don't believe he's in imminent danger now but it was horrible."

The other two evacuees include a 41-year-old Dutch crew member and a 65-year-old German.

Oceanwide Expeditions said the German evacuee was "closely associated" with a German woman who died on board the ship on 2 May.

In addition to Anstee, another patient is also receiving hospital treatment in the Netherlands, while a 69-year-old British man is in a private health facility in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, from WHO, said: "I am very happy to say the patient in South Africa is doing better, and the two patients in the Netherlands we hear are stable. So that is actually very good news."

The origin of the outbreak is still unknown and it is not known if people other than cruise ship passengers have been infected with the disease.

WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus told a news conference that the first two cases had "travelled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip which included visits to sites where the species of rat known to carry the virus was present."

One of the three deaths was a Dutch woman, 69, who left the MV Hondius when it stopped at St Helena on 24 April, and travelled to South Africa where she died two days later.