Video: UK paratrooper's parachute drop on remote island to aid hantavirus patient

The UK Defence Ministry has released dramatic footage of a British paratrooper parachuting through thick clouds onto the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha to assist a man suspected of contracting hantavirus after disembarking from the cruise ship MV Hondius.

The video captures the soldier gliding over the vast ocean before touching down on one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands as part of a rare emergency medical mission. The suspected patient, a British national, developed diarrhoea and fever days after leaving the vessel and is currently isolating in a stable condition.

A team of six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade carried out the operation from an RAF A400M aircraft, while oxygen cylinders and medical supplies were air-dropped simultaneously. The UK said it marked the first time British military medical personnel had been deployed for humanitarian support via parachute.

Tristan da Cunha, home to just 221 people, has no airport and can only be reached by sea. The mission followed confirmation by the UK Health Security Agency of a suspected hantavirus case on the island.