Northampton foreign office worker was flown out to Cuban coronavirus cruise ship incident within three hours of first case

A Northampton foreign office official helped bring hundreds of vulnerable British passengers home last week after a coronavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in Cuba.

Over 680 people were stranded on the virus-stricken Braemar cruise ship last week after a number of people tested positive for Corvid-19.

It comes after Northamptonshire couple David and Sally Able were quarantined on a ship in Japan for two week in February - but even then, it took them seven weeks to come home.

But in contrast, the passengers of the Braemer were repatriated last week - thanks in part to foreign office worker Linton Winnett, from Northampton, who formed part of the team flown out to help bring the stranded British nationals home.

Linton, 33, was on a plane to Cuba within three hours of the first case being confirmed as part of a foreign office rapid deployment team.

He and his team were flown out to Havana to prepare the safe return of the 671 British passengers by ensuring there were no issues at the port and airport, delivering essential medical supplies to the ship, giving advice to passengers and working with the Cuban authorities to ensure the logistics were in place for the flights to run smoothly.

They were flown home on four specially organised flights on March 18.