Irish woman reflects on 'escaping' hantavirus on cruise

An Irish woman who was released from quarantine on Monday following her trip on a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak has spoken of her surprise at how she never contracted the virus.

Anne Lane, who turns 80 next month, said it was "very nice" to have left the HSE isolation facility, especially given the weather she has seen this past week.

Ms Lane had to spend six weeks in isolation after the outbreak aboard the MV Hondius, where three fellow passengers died.

She was evacuated from Tenerife in full Personal Protective Equipment and repatriated to Ireland.

Speaking on RTÉ's Brendan O’Connor programme, Ms Lane said when she got back to her home "it felt like I had only left the week before, except for the state of my plants in my backyard".

'I still can't believe how we escaped it'

She said she could not believe she did not contract hantavirus, adding she was sure that blood tests which were taken during quarantine would reveal that she had.

"I know of at least one case where a fellow passenger contracted it later," she said, adding she could not believe she "escaped" it.

"I still can't believe how we escaped it. I know that when you say like three people died .... and that sounds small, but it would be if it was a big cruise ship with 1,500 people, but this was a very small ship. Its maximum passengers was 160. We never had more than about 130 plus the staff," she said.

She believed she would contract the virus because of the amount of time she had spent with the ship’s doctor, before he himself became ill.

"I said to my travelling companion, you know we're going to get it because we have spent so much time in the doctor's company. So I thought it's inevitable."

Ms Lane said she and her fellow travel companion were brought straight to Baldonnell once they left the ship in Tenerife.

She had no complaints about the HSE centre, which she described as "absolutely amazing" and very comfortable.

"It's not Dublin, and there are apartments and you're put into an apartment. You have everything you need there, every basic thing you need, and three meals are brought to you every day. And then we had blood tests every week, because for the first two weeks there, I still believed we would get it," she said.

"It's one of those places you never hear about until you need it, and we needed it," Ms Lane added.

'I might go back to Antarctica next year'

Ms Lane said she would celebrate her 80th birthday next month and that her birthday "is going to be the entire month".

The situation has not changed her priorities, she said, adding that she is still going to try and do everything that she can.

"I might go back to Antarctica next year," she added.

Read more:
Timeline of events on board MV Hondius
Hantavirus-hit cruise ship concludes voyage in Rotterdam

The company she took the trip with was a "very, very good company", the Cork native said, who "couldn't have handled the situation any better".

"They're a very, very good company, and I had always thought so. I had never a single complaint on any of my trips, but I really thought so after this. They handled it, could not have been better. Never allowed us to wonder. They were on top of it all the time. The captain was absolutely amazing - and the expedition leader. And I would trust them again with my life," she said.

She said she went on the trip because she has always been interested in the polar regions and had been on six different trips before the last one.

This was a different type of trip, she explained, and involved taking the ship from the Antarctic to the Arctic at the end of the Antarctic Summer season.

"I had always wanted to do it because it covers so many different islands and so many different climates," she said.