Australian passengers stuck in the middle of a deadly hantavirus cruise ship outbreak will wait out their 42-day incubation period at a remote quarantine facility in Perth.

The outbreak of hantavirus on the MV Hondius, a luxury cruise ship, has left three people dead and a fourth person fighting for life. Nine people have been infected, including a French woman who tested positive for the virus on Monday.

Five Australians and one Kiwi were some of the last to be evacuated from the ship. The group — three people from NSW, two from Queensland and the New Zealander — was due to be medically evacuated from the Canary Islands, south of Spain, at 5pm local time (1am Tuesday AEST).

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7NEWS understands they will now be taken to the Netherlands on the final flight from Tenerife at 6.20pm (3.20am AEST), where they will be picked up by an Australian government-supported charter flight before flying more than 25 hours to Perth.

It is understood the Australian flight did not arrive on time and also faces issues with refuelling, something that is not an issue for other nations making shorter repatriation flights.

The six passengers are set to land at Perth’s RAAF Base Pearce later this week, after initially being due home Tuesday, before being transferred to the purpose-built Bullsbrook facility to quarantine for at least three weeks. A team of doctors will also be on the plane to monitor their symptoms.

The Bullsbrook facility was built in 2022 as a COVID quarantine centre but has sat unused since. It is understood the need to quarantine is also causing the government issues with finding a crew for the flight with foreign workers unwilling to spend three weeks at Bullsbrook.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the federal government would take control off the passengers’ home states when it came to making quarantine arrangements.

Passengers will be flown to a facility in Bullsbrook, which is home to the RAAF's Pearce airbase. Credit: AAP

Passengers evacuated off the ship in Spain. Credit: Supplied

The group of Australians will stay at Bullsbrook in Perth. Credit: 7NEWS

“The Commonwealth has consulted with Western Australia, which was always going to be the first port of entry by this repatriation flight, and also with NSW and Queensland directly given that the Australians are all residents of those two states,” he said.

“This is a complex operation that often involves a couple of different countries and we’ll be in a position to provide further updates once those flights are finalised.

“An order will then be made for those passengers to be subject to quarantine arrangements at the Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience, which is just north east of Perth, next door to RAAF Base Pearce.”

Butler said the passengers would be placed in the centre for three weeks, however, he acknowledged the quarantine period was shorter than the virus’ 42-day incubation period, with further quarantining not ruled out.

“There is an incubation period of 42 days potentially for this virus, but that incubation or the risk of transmission obviously drops off after the first few weeks. So we’ll be seeking further advice from our chief health officers.”

Australia’s flagship biocontainment centre

Prior to Butler’s announcement, a purpose-built NSW Biocontainment Centre (NBC) at Westmead Hospital in Sydney was tipped as one potential location to be used for the passengers.

The centre is the first of its kind in Australia and was designed to safely contain and treat patients with the most infectious and dangerous diseases.

The highly specialised facility was built in 2023 to care for both adult and paediatric patients with high consequence infectious diseases, which are diseases with high acuity and have high case-fatality rates such as Ebola and MERS.

The biocontainment centre at Westmead Hospital is being prepared as the likely destination for some of the returning passengers. Credit: Instagram/WestMeadKids

MV Hondius is now anchored offshore near Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. Credit: AAP

The centre is equipped with six specialised quarantine class and negative pressure beds and has its own elevator to move contagious patients directly from the Westmead Hospital helipad or an ambulance straight to the centre.

It also has its own sewage treatment plant to treat contaminated patient waste, with the entire floor of the centre designed in different colours to identify which areas are “clean” or “contaminated” for additional safety.

Medical staff providing care to patients in the centre are also said to take half an hour to put on and remove personal protective equipment, which involves more than 40 steps, according to NSW Health.

What is Hantavirus?

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses carried by rodents that can cause severe and often deadly disease in humans.

People are usually infected through contact with infected rodents or their urine, droppings or saliva.

Health officials are preparing to quarantine four Australian citizens, a permanent resident and a New Zealand citizen. Credit: AAP

Andes virus, found in South America and the strain found on the MV Hondius, can have limited human‑to‑human transmission, according to the World Health Organisation.

This type of hantaviruses can cause hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), a severe respiratory illness, with a case fatality rate up to 50 per cent.

Alarmingly, initial symptoms may seem like normal flu-like symptoms, however, can rapidly deteriorate to severe respiratory failure and even cardiac shock.

Symptoms can also take between one to six weeks to present post-exposure, and can include fever, dizziness, muscle aches in the thighs, hips and back, fatigue, headache, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

In later stages of the virus, infected patients can experience shortness of breath and coughing from fluid accumulating in the lungs. The virus can also issues with the heart, including low blood pressure and kidney failure.

The virus is a rare and often deadly respiratory disease being treated with the same level of caution as COVID-19 despite expert reassurance.

“If it were readily transmissible through casual contact, we would have seen a pandemic of it already,” said WHO medical epidemiologist Boris Pavlin.

Of the nearly 150 on board, 94 have been evacuated on eight planes.

What happened to the other passengers?

After the MV Hondius docked in Tenerife on Sunday morning, the lengthy and strictly monitored process of getting the 147 passengers and crew off the ship began.

Passengers grouped by nationality were ferried in small boats from the cruise ship anchored at the Port of Granadilla to the island, where they filed onto waiting buses, to be taken to the airport.

One of the 17 American passengers evacuated was reported to have tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms, US health officials said.

A French national also developed symptoms while on a chartered flight from Tenerife to Paris.

Some passengers have already disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius. Credit: AAP

The person was one of five evacuated from the cruise ship, with all passengers “immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice”, French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said.

Fourteen Spanish nationals were seen being hosed down with disinfectant on arrival in Madrid, and will now face mandatory quarantine at a military hospital.

A plane carrying 26 passengers including a number of crew members also touched down in the Netherlands.

The final evacuation flights for the remaining passengers to their home countries are scheduled to depart on Monday local time.