UK to bring MV Hondius passengers home for monitored self-isolation

Ten passengers from Saint Helena and Ascension Island who were aboard the MV Hondius will finish their self-isolation in the UK, a precaution aimed at keeping them within reach of England’s NHS high consequence infectious disease network if any symptoms develop.

UK Health Security Agency officials said none of the 10 were symptomatic when the move was announced, and that daily contact would continue throughout the isolation period. The agency also said some other contacts already isolating in England would be relocated to places where they could safely continue isolation with specialist medical access. UKHSA said it would release the isolation location later.

The decision follows a multi-country hantavirus cluster linked to the Dutch-flagged expedition ship, which left Ushuaia, Argentina, on 1 April with 147 people from 23 countries on board. The voyage passed through Antarctica, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena and Ascension Island. The World Health Organization said illness onset in the cluster occurred between 6 and 28 April, with seven cases identified by 4 May, including three deaths. By 8 May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said WHO had reported eight cases, still including three deaths, and the virus had been confirmed as Andes virus on 6 May.

Public-health authorities on both sides of the outbreak have repeatedly stressed that the wider risk remains low because hantavirus is not spread through everyday social contact. That matters for the logistics now underway: the goal is not broad restriction, but targeted monitoring of a small number of exposed travellers and close contacts while they complete the recommended isolation period.

The route through the South Atlantic has been closely managed. Oceanwide Expeditions said 30 passengers disembarked at Saint Helena on 24 April, including the body of a passenger who died on board on 11 April. WHO said it had informed 12 countries that nationals had disembarked there. On Saint Helena, authorities said higher-risk contacts were being monitored for 45 days from the last known exposure, with isolation due to end on 9 June if there were no developments.

Ascension Island officials said one passenger was admitted to Georgetown Hospital on 27 April and medically evacuated on 29 April. The island government said a small number of staff involved in the patient’s care were self-monitoring and that the wider community risk remained extremely low. UKHSA said all British nationals on board had already returned to the UK on a dedicated flight from Tenerife to Manchester on 10 May, with 20 British nationals, one UK-resident German national and one Japanese passenger being monitored at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral.