British paratroopers lead airdrop onto Tristan da Cunha for suspected hantavirus case

MADRID, May 10 – British paratroopers have dropped onto Britain’s most remote overseas territory, Tristan da Cunha, along with medics and medical supplies, after a case of suspected hantavirus was confirmed there.

A team of six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade jumped from an RAF A400M transport aircraft that flew 6,788 km (4,218 miles) from RAF Brize Norton air base in Oxfordshire to Ascension Island then another 3,000 km due south to Tristan da Cunha.

Dropped alongside them on Saturday were oxygen supplies and other medical aid. The A400M was refuelled mid-flight by a supporting RAF Voyager.

The operation is the first time the UK military has deployed medical personnel to provide humanitarian support via a parachute jump, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The supplies were primarily destined for a British man who UK health authorities say was a passenger on the cruise ship that was hit by a hantavirus outbreak and which docked at the island between April 13 and 15. The WHO said the man reported symptoms compatible with hantavirus on April 28 and that he is stable and in isolation.

“With oxygen supplies on the island at a critical level, an airdrop with medical personnel was the only method of getting vital care to the patient in time,” the Ministry of Defence statement said.

Tristan da Cunha, home to only around 200 people, is halfway between South Africa and South America. It is the world’s remotest inhabited island, more than 2,400 km and a six-day boat ride from St Helena, its nearest inhabited neighbour. It usually relies on a medical team of two people for its health needs, and is normally only accessible by boat as it has no airstrip.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were previously delivered by military plane on May 7 to Ascension Island, where another British man from the cruise ship had disembarked before being medically evacuated to South Africa.

“The arrival of paratroopers, medical personnel and medical supplies from the sky has hopefully reassured the people of Tristan da Cunha,” said Brigadier Ed Cartwright, Officer Commanding 16 Air Assault Brigade. REUTERS