Kiwi and Australian virus-ship passengers fly to weeks of quarantine in Perth

Remaining passengers of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius wait to board buses after disembarking on the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands. Photo / AFP

A New Zealander and a group of Australians will finally fly home after they were stranded on a cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantravirus outbreak.

The six passengers are to depart Tenerife in the Canary Islands on a flight chartered by the Australian federal government, transit the Netherlands, and arrive in Western Australia later this week.

The flight route and refuelling requirements had to adhere to strict health advice, which made the repatriation mission complex.

Medical staff are on flights to monitor and assist the passengers. The passengers are expected to arrive at RAAF Base Pearce, in Perth’s northeast. Passengers and crew will be transported next door to the Bullsbrook Centre For National Resilience to quarantine.

None of the repatriated passengers are displaying symptoms of the virus.

Minister for Health Mark Butler said the New Zealander, three NSW residents and two Queensland residents would be quarantined at the Bullsbrook centre for at least three weeks.

The quarantine facility was built next to the RAAF Pearce during the pandemic for Covid purposes but was never used.

Butler said the quarantined passengers would be subjected to testing during quarantine and measures would be put in place when they returned home to NSW and Queensland.

It was not revealed how and where the New Zealand citizen would be returned to New Zealand.

Butler said Australia had a responsibility to bring those passengers home and to protect them from any risk.

NewsWire understands that there are measures in place to ensure the group does not come into contact with the general population.

They will be transferred directly from their charter flight to the transportation that will take them to their quarantine locations.

They are part of the final set of evacuations from the MV Hondius, which has left Tenerife and is returning to the Netherlands.

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