Inside daring parachute mission to support hantavirus victim on Tristan da Cunha | News World

Paratroopers responded to a suspected hantavirus case at a golf course covered in rocks on an island in St Helena.

Army personnel descended on Tristan da Cunha, where a British national thought to have caught the disease had disembarked the MV Hondius cruise ship.

A team including six paratroopers, an RAF consultant and an army nurse parachuted onto the island, which has a population of 221 and is normally accessible only by boat.

They made the vital trip thanks to an RAF A400M transport aircraft which flew a 7,000-mile journey from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Ascension Island before heading onto Tristan da Cunha.

It was supported by an RAF voyager for the 56-hour haul.

Brigadier Ed Cartwright, the commander of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, said: ‘I think the soldiers will have had a great time, but it’s pretty risky.

‘Parachuting has some inherent dangers. The winds were reasonably high.

‘The parachuters – I’ve spoken to them – they described it to me as a ‘pretty tasty jump’.’

The parachutists had to make a ‘difficult descent down through the cloud and then on to the drop zone, which was a golf course covered in rocks’, he explained.

He added that further medical support had been sent over to ensure the team could return safely.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed this was the first time humanitarian support had been delivered by parachute.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘We will continue to work closely with international authorities and the Tristan da Cunha administration, keeping those affected informed and ensuring the right support is in place in the UK and across the Overseas Territories.’

It comes as the UKHSA said the 22 British passengers on the MV Hondius would be repatriated to the UK and be held at an isolation facility at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside.

They are expected to be kept at the former Covid quarantine centre for up to 72 hours.

None of the passengers who disembarked the vessel in Tenerife showed symptoms of the virus, Spanish authorities said.

Two confirmed British cases are currently in hospitals in South Africa and the Netherlands.

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