HMS Medway arrived at Tristan da Cunha with six doctors, weeks after soldiers did a parachute jump to deliver emergency aid to the stricken Brit
A Royal Navy warship carried a team of medics to a remote island to treat a Brit struck down with hantavirus. The man was rapidly running out of oxygen after developing symptoms in the South Atlantic.
HMS Medway arrived at Tristan da Cunha with six doctors, weeks after soldiers did a parachute jump to deliver emergency aid to the island.
Armed Forces minister Al Carns said: “Flying thousands of miles, parachuting into the unknown, they demonstrated immense courage in a daring life-saving mission.”
The colony, home to around 245 people, has one GP surgery. It is staffed by two doctors who were exhausted after providing round-the-clock care and were running out of supplies.
HMS Medway arrived from Portsmouth, Hamps, delivering the medical crew and fresh supplies. It will also pick up the team of Pathfinders from the Parachute Regiment who jumped onto Tristan da Cunha.
The paratroopers, from 16 Air Assault Brigade, dropped on to the British Overseas Territory after a flight from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire.
The patient had been a passenger on cruise ship MV Hondius, which became the centre of a hantavirus outbreak earlier this month after three passengers died.
The illness can transfer to humans by inhaling contaminated particles from the urine, poo and saliva of infected rodents.
It leaves victims with fever, headaches, backache, diarrhoea and vomiting. Tristan da Cunha’s Camogli Healthcare Centre, dubbed as the world’s most remote GP surgery, has space for two inpatients.
The island has no intensive care unit or ventilators. Emergency cases normally require evacuation to Cape Town in South Africa, a six-day journey.