A PLANE carrying 20 UK citizens who had been passengers on a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak landed in Manchester, northwest England, on Sunday, television pictures showed.
The flight arrived at Manchester Airport from Tenerife, where the MV Hondius is docked. The British nationals will be taken to a hospital near Liverpool for tests and will remain in quarantine for up to 72 hours.
Spanish government information earlier said that 22 British nationals had been evacuated from the MV Hondius.
A British official said 20 of them travelled on the special flight to Manchester. The other two do not live in Britain and will travel to their countries of residence.
Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, posting on X, said: “Thank you to all those who worked around the clock to get passengers from MV Hondius back to the UK by special flight this evening with public health protections in place.”
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A spokesman for the National Health Service said on Saturday that the arrivals would undergo medical tests after reaching Arrowe Park Hospital near Liverpool.
The group will initially remain there for 72 hours, after which arrangements for further isolation will be assessed.
Since the outbreak began, three passengers from the ship — a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman — have died. Others have fallen ill with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.
The WHO said on Friday it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected cases.
(With inputs from agencies)
