Passenger on America-bound hantavirus evacuation flight tests positive for deadly disease

A passenger on a US-bound flight repatriating Americans from a hantavirus-struck cruise ship has tested positive for the disease.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said one of the 17 Americans being brought back has tested mildly positive for the Andes strain of the virus - which can transmit between humans.

A second has mild symptoms, HHS said.

The two passengers with symptoms have now been placed in the plane's biocontainment units.

After the jet returns stateside, passengers will be airlifted to a leading pathogen treatment centre at the University of Nebraska.

The passenger with mild symptoms will be taken to a second centre, the HHS said.

On arrival at the facilities, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive care based on their condition, the department added.

A total of 18 people will be on the American repatriation flight - the 17 Americans and one British national who is a US resident, Spain's Health Minister said.

On Saturday, an official from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the federal Government had no plans to make the American evacuees quarantine upon arrival in Nebraska.

"We are not quarantining anybody,” a CDC official told reporters.

The number of confirmed and probable cases of hantavirus onboard the MV Hondius cruise has now risen to nine.

That number includes two people confirmed to have died from the virus, and one person who remains suspected to have died from the virus.

On Sunday evening, a number of Britons who were also evacuated from the ship touched down in the UK.

HANTAVIRUS - READ MORE:

• Hantavirus-infected cruise ship arrives in Tenerife
• Army Brigadier Ed Cartwright reveals terrifying details of ‘hugely successful’ Hantavirus parachute mission
• Former British police officer evacuated from rat-virus ship named after 'very traumatic few days'

Twenty passengers landed in Britain and were taken to a "managed setting for clinical assessment and testing" at Arrowe Park hospital in Merseyside, where they will be placed into a 72-hour quarantine.

Arrowe Park was used during the Covid pandemic, where Britons flying back from China were placed into quanratine upon their return from China.

Janelle Holmes, the CEO of Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust, which oversees Arrowe Park, said the quarantiners would be left feeling "shattered" by their ordeal.

"What we've learnt from past experience is they're going to be absolutely shattered," Ms Holmes said.

"They've probably felt quite traumatised by the whole experience so the thing for us to do is to make sure that they're here, they're safe, they're welcome."

The Australian Government said this morning it would also repatriate its citizens from the Dutch-flagged vessel - while two Irish citizens have also been flown home.

"We have agreed to repatriate a small number of Australians... and also one resident of another country to Australia for medical treatment," Environment Minister Murray Watt told ABC News.

He did not give the nationality of the extra person.

It also remains unclear whether any of the people being brought to Australia have fallen ill or were showing symptoms of the virus.

The MV Hondius was carrying 147 people - 87 passengers and 60 crew - when it docked in Tenerife.

Originally, about 175 people were on board when the voyage started in Argentina, but dozens disembarked at various stops before the outbreak was fully detected.

In what was believed to have been the first mission of its kind, a specialist Army team and medical personnel were parachuted onto the British Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha carrying aid and equipment.

A British national disembarked from the cruise ship on to the island, where they live, with a suspected case of hantavirus.