Kuwait livestock ship detained off Australian coast due to infection from coronavirus
This news has been read 7134 times!
KUWAIT CITY, May 26: The Australian authorities said that they are holding a Kuwaiti ship which transports livestock from the western coast of Australia as it was confirmed that six of its crew members were infected with Covid-19.
Mark McGowan, Prime Minister of the State of Western Australia, said the ship left the Middle East on May 7 and docked near Perth on May 22 after Australian Immigration and Agricultural Authority authorities reported that some of the crew members had a high temperature.
Tests subsequently confirmed that six crew members had contracted the disease as a result of the outbreak of the Corona virus, and were taken to hotels for isolation, while the state police chief from the Border Guard and Agricultural Authorities inquired about the reason the vessel was allowed to dock.
“This is clearly not a good thing,” McGowan told reporters at a televised news conference.
He added, “We must reach a settlement of the situation as soon as possible so that the ship can leave the port.”
According to the maritime records published on the Internet, the previous station where the ship stopped was the port of Hamad in Qatar.
The ship was to have loaded a cargo of thousands of sheep for transport to the Middle East.
The management of incoming ship operations has become a thorny issue in Australia after hundreds of cruise ship passengers were infected by Covid-19 last March.
About a quarter of the 102 deaths caused by the disease in Australia are linked to the cruise ship Ruby Princess, which has become the country’s single largest source of transmission.
The Kuwaiti Livestock Transport and Trade Company (Livestock) referred the ship’s owner to Mark Harvey Sutton, CEO of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, who declined to comment on the communications between the authorities of the two countries and the ship. But he said by phone, “I followed all the procedures in place.”
He added that the source, the Rural Export and Trading Company, was planning to transport 56,000 sheep to the Middle East. Sutton said he did not know what would happen if the postponement of sheep was postponed until after May 31, when the decision to suspend the transport of livestock to the Middle East begins.
This news has been read 7134 times!
