Two Irish people who had been on board a cruise ship hit by hantavirus returned home on Sunday on an Air Corps plane that landed at Baldonnel military airbase in Dublin just after 9pm.
Ann Lane, a former personal assistant to former president Mary Robinson who lives in Dublin, and her friend were accompanied by Health Service Executive (HSE) medics on the flight from Tenerife.
The Department of Health said both would now “isolate for a period of time in a HSE facility, in line with European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance”.
About 20 minutes after the plane landed, two National Ambulance Service ambulances, their windows blacked out, emerged from the campus, followed by a HSE paramedic’s car. The vehicles turned right, towards the city.
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Speaking in advance of their return on Sunday night, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said the two passengers were “safe and well” and would be isolating and in quarantine for about five weeks.
The department said that “for purposes of patient confidentiality, no further information would be provided on their care”.
Sunday’s return flight from Ireland to Tenerife is the first medical evacuation operation in which the Defence Forces’ recently acquired Dassault Falcon 6X aircraft has taken part since its delivery late last year.
The Defence Forces said on Sunday evening the aircraft, which was acquired in December 2025 for €53 million plus VAT, had mostly been used for ministerial transportation to date.
The two Irish people were among groups of passengers and crew who disembarked from the MV Hondius in Granadilla Port in Tenerife, Spain, on Sunday to be evacuated to their home countries, where they are to isolate in accordance with national protocols to prevent further spread of the disease.
The virus is usually spread by rodents but is also transmissible from person to person in rare cases of close contact.
The WHO said the first passenger who died on the ship may have been infected before boarding, possibly during travel in Argentina and Chile.
Spain’s health ministry on Sunday said no rodents had been detected aboard the ship.
The Department of Health said “the ECDC and WHO have classified the risk to public health from hantavirus at the lowest level provided for within their respective assessment frameworks.
“The WHO has said that as this is the first documented outbreak of hantavirus aboard a ship, a highly precautionary approach is being implemented. Measures are being taken out of an abundance of caution to protect the health of passengers and crew and the general public”.
Three people who were on board the ship have died – a Dutch couple and a German national. Four other passengers remain hospitalised in South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
On the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory, a suspected case is being treated by a team of medical specialists parachuted in by the UK military. British health authorities have said a British resident of the islands, who had disembarked from the cruise ship there, was suspected of having the virus.
Still, health officials urged calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic that this virus was far less contagious and posed little risk to the general population.
A woman in Spain who was tested for the virus after sharing a flight with one of the victims tested negative.
The 17 Americans on board the cruise ship disembarked on Sunday and will be moved to a quarantine facility in Nebraska, Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN’s State of the Union.
Once they arrive at the US national quarantine unit, a secured facility on the University of Nebraska Medical Centre campus in Omaha, they will be interviewed and assessed for risk.
The protocol allows the travellers to stay in the Nebraska unit to complete their quarantine or return home to complete it there if “their home situation allows it” and they will be under the supervision of state and local public health agencies with CDC support, the acting director said.
Thirty crew members will remain on board and sail on Monday evening to the Netherlands, where the ship will be disinfected.
The final two flights to evacuate passengers from the cruise ship will depart on Monday afternoon, Spain’s health minister said on Sunday evening, adding 94 passengers had been evacuated so far.
One flight from Australia will carry six passengers and another from New Zealand will take 18 passengers, with both flights also taking passengers from other countries which did not send their own repatriation flights, officials have said. – Additional reporting: Agencies
