A group of Australians trying to get home from the hantavirus ship in the Canary Islands will have a longer journey ahead after a last-minute change of plan.

The Aussie passengers were the last to leave the MV Hondius and had been expecting to land in Perth on Tuesday but must now detour via the Netherlands.

Their retrieval was delayed when strong winds forced them to dock briefly at the port ‌of Granadilla de Abona to allow them to disembark safely and board a flight to the Netherlands, Spain’s health ministry said.

The Australian government has promised to retrieve the four Australian citizens, one permanent resident and a New Zealand citizen within 48 hours.

In the latest development on Tuesday (AEST), they were reportedly still awaiting a government-chartered plane due to logistical issues such as finding crew willing to take the journey and quarantine.

They will then have to undergo a strict three-week quarantine at the Centre for National Resilience on the outskirts of Perth.

“I make no apology for the fact that this is one of the stronger responses you will see around the world,” Health Minister Mark Butler said.

Three of those returning to Australia live in NSW and two in Queensland. All will land at Perth’s Pearce RAAF base.

Though hantavirus has an incubation period of 42 days, the group will initially be required to quarantine for three weeks.

Those flying to Australia were among the last to disembark, but none are displaying symptoms of the virus.

Nineteen crew members from the ship and three doctors who treated them were due to take off for the Netherlands on a separate flight, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.

The MV Hondius continued its journey on Monday with 26 crew members to the Netherlands — its flag state — where it would be disinfected, health authorities said.

“I could not imagine sailing through these circumstances with a better group of people, guests and crew alike,” Captain Jan Dobrogowski, from the Netherlands, said in a video posted on Oceanwide Expeditions’ website.

The disembarkation caps a complex ‌operation that has so far resulted ‌in 94 people being ⁠repatriated to their countries of residence, 41 days after the MV Hondius set off from southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive test result ​for the respiratory viral infection.

Three people — a Dutch couple and a German citizen — have died since the start of the outbreak of the virus, which is usually spread by wild rodents but also transmittable person-to-person in rare cases of close contact.

The World Health Organisation said on Monday there were seven confirmed cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus, and two other suspected cases – one who died before being tested, and one on Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where no tests are available.

The confirmed cases include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday.

Her condition was deteriorating, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said.

The US Department ⁠of Health and Human Services said one of the 17 US citizens being repatriated had also tested mildly positive for the Andes ‌virus.

US President Donald Trump said he was satisfied with his country’s handling of the outbreak.

“It looks like ​it’s just a ‌disease that we’ve had around in a very small way for a long time. Not a good one to catch because – you know, it’s a very severe disease if you catch it – but it’s very hard ​to catch,” Trump said at the White House on Monday.

As the MV Hondius approached the Canary Islands late last week – despite protests from the regional government about the risk of the virus spreading – Spain’s health minister and the WHO said all passengers were “asymptomatic”.

Results of tests on 14 Spanish passengers quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid were due later on Monday, the country’s health ministry added.

However, ​health officials say that because the virus does not spread easily between people, there is ​little risk to the public, urging calm to a world scarred from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ‌MV Hondius had been carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of severe respiratory illnesses among passengers was first reported to the WHO on May 3.

By then, 34 other passengers had disembarked on islands in the Atlantic before the cruise ship headed north to Cape Verde, where news of the outbreak emerged.

It was first detected by health officials in Johannesburg on May 2 treating a British man who had disembarked the ship.

That was three weeks after the first passenger, a Dutchman, had died.

The luxury cruise ship left for Spain’s Canary Islands on May 6 after Madrid had accepted a WHO request to manage its evacuation.

The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers, ​its director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said.

-with AAP