Ann Lane, one of two Irish passengers on the MV Hondius ship hit with hantavirus, says she would go to sea again with the same company.
“Oceanwide Expeditions were fantastic,” Lane told The Sunday Independent. “We all got a letter from the captain, who must never have had a wink of sleep during the whole ordeal, but kept us informed with every bit of information he had as soon as he had it.”
“The captain, expedition leader and ship’s staff, mainly from the Philippines, were unsung heroes- the staff were amazing, feeding us, making sure we were ok, and cleaning our cabins as if everything was normal,” she said.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Independent last week, Lane recalled the ordeal where up to 13 people became ill and three of them died after it was confirmed in early May that the illness was the Andean strain of hantavirus, which can be transmitted between humans and has a 40 per cent fatality rate for those infected.
A former personal assistant to former president Mary Robinson and Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik, among others, Lane has been to Antarctica several times. She departed from Ushuaia in southern Argentina on April 1st on the polar expedition ship MV Hondius.
The ship, with many keen birdwatchers on board, was bound for the Antarctic islands of South Georgia and Gough, along with Tristan da Cunha, one of the world’s most remote coastal communities, along with St Helena, before heading north across the Equator, finishing at the Cape Verde islands.
“I made my peace, I was sure we were going to get it, because we were in frequent contact with several of the people on board who subsequently became very ill,” Lane told the Sunday Independent.
Among those were the Dutch ship’s doctor, who became infected after treating passengers. It took up to five days of negotiations before the Cape Verde authorities permitted him and another sick passenger to be evacuated to the Netherlands for urgent medical treatment.
After the ship was eventually allowed to berth in Tenerife, Lane and her friend were flown to Ireland in the Government jet and taken to an HSE isolation facility in north Dublin. She has just completed over 40 days in quarantine.
Read The Sunday Independent here.
