Two sailors with feared new strain of virus evacuated from ship to Sunshine Coast hospital

Two sailors on a cargo ship have been evacuated to hospital after testing positive to COVID-19, which is feared to be a strain not yet seen in Australia.

Two crew members on-board a container ship anchored off Queensland’s Sunshine Coast have been evacuated to a mainland hospital after being diagnosed with a strain of COVID-19 not yet seen in Australia.

The sailors will be recorded as two new cases in the state’s virus count because they are now in the Sunshine Coast University Hospital.

A third member of the crew had previously recovered from the virus.

All 19 crew members on board the Sofrana Surville were tested on Wednesday off the coast of Mooloolaba after they were stopped from docking at Brisbane.

A New Zealand engineer, who had worked on the same ship last week, tested positive to COVID-19 on Saturday in New Zealand.

It was originally reported the engineer had tested positive to a strain of the virus not seen in New Zealand or Australia before.

Two crew members on board the Sofrana Surville have been evacuated to Sunshine Coast University Hospial.

New Zealand has asked Queensland to run genomic sequencing tests to determine whether the cases were linked to the case of new strain.

“That can take up to a week, but we’ll do the work asked by the New Zealand government,” Health Minister Steven Miles said.

Maritime Safety Queensland general manager Angus Mitchell said on Wednesday there had been no reports of illness on-board.

“An engineer who worked on this vessel and another has tested positive … it is a strain they haven’t seen in New Zealand before,” he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

“They are still trying to work out where he got it from, but either of the two international visiting ships are an obvious place.

There were no other cases of COVID-19 reported in Queensland on Thursday, with the state now counting only four active cases.

Mr Miles said it was a stark contrast with “an awful 24 hours around the world”.

“We in Australia, especially in Queensland, continue to do well, but this pandemic is far from over,” he said.

“It continues to get worse.”