A team of British army medics and paratroopers airdropped onto the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha Saturday to render aid to a UK nations who is believed to have contracted hantavirus on the MV Hondius cruise ship.
The unidentified Briton, who lives on the island located more than 6,000 miles from the UK, disembarked from the virus-stricken ship on April 14 and reported symptoms including fever and diarrhea starting two weeks later. He’s currently in isolation and reportedly in “stable” condition, BBC writes.
Six paratroopers and two medical clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachuted from an Airbus A400M Atlas plane onto a golf course on the island, which has no airstrip and just 221 residents — and is only reachable by boat.
The airdrop also included over 3.5 tons of medical equipment to ensure Tristan, one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands, has the necessary supplies to navigate a potential outbreak, according to a local government website.
Tristan da Cunha is part of Saint Helena — an obscure group of islands that is a territory of the UK. The Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius stopped at Saint Helena after the first passenger onboard had already died of the rat-bourn hantavirus.
Dozens of passengers got off and returned home, as well.
Al Carns, the secretary of the UK armed forces, told the BBC that the island’s high winds, which average more than 25 mph, made for “incredibly challenging circumstances” for the paratroopers.
“I want to pay a huge tribute to our brave personnel for carrying out their task with the utmost professionalism and composure under pressure,” he added.
The UK Ministry of Defense says the operation was the first time the country’s military had ever parachuted medical personnel for humanitarian purposes.
The World Health Organization said there have been two suspected cases of the deadly hantavirus in addition to the six confirmed cases.
Two other Britons with confirmed cases have been flown to the Netherlands and South Africa for treatment.
The Hondius cruise ship anchored in Tenerife Sunday, and officials are now undertaking the delicate process of disembarking the ship’s 147 passengers for additional monitoring and treatment before flying them back to their home countries.
So far, three people who were on the ship succumbed to the disease, which is transmitted primarily through exposure to airborne particles from rodent urine, saliva or feces, a Dutch husband and wife and a passenger from Germany.
The remaining 22 British passengers are scheduled to fly home on a charter flight from Tenerife, where they will isolate for 45 days and be monitored and tested as necessary.
