Western Australia’s top politician has called for action to combat the rising incidents of Covid-19 infections among seafarers calling at the state’s ports.

State premier Mark McGowan said it was becoming clear that ships arriving with the virus on board was one of the state’s “weakest links” and the “biggest risk to our way of life”.

“The arrival of unwell maritime crew is now fast becoming the most difficult issue for our authorities to manage safely, without putting our community at risk,” he said.

“We have about 30 vessels arriving at WA ports each and every day — which goes to show just how significant the risk can be.”

McGowan said that is why he is asking the Commonwealth government to “step up and work with other jurisdictions on this issue”.

“We need a coordinated international approach to this — and we need our federal government to take action.”

Major outbreak
McGowan’s call comes as nearly half the crew on the 12,900-dwt livestock carrier Al Messilah (built 1980) are now infected with coronavirus. The ship arrived this week.

“Although we have no new cases of Covid-19 reported overnight, test results from the Al Messilah have just come through,” he said.

Western Australia State Premier Mark McGowan (right) visiting Port Hedland earlier this month. Photo: Mark McGowan Facebook page

“We have a further 24 positive Covid-19 crew members on the ship currently at Fremantle Port. This is in addition to the one positive case reported over the weekend.

“Obviously these test results are only at one point in time, so it is possible we could get further positive results in coming days, given there are 52 crew on board.”

Western Australia has seen a number of vessels arrive at its ports with positive Covid-19 cases in the past couple of weeks.

NYK Line's 83,400-dwt bulker Key Integrity (built 2011), arrived in Western Australia this week with crew suffering from Covid-19, local authorities confirmed.

Last week a Mitsui OSK Lines capesize became the second bulker to suffer an outbreak of Covid-19 off Port Hedland, the world’s largest iron export terminal.

A crew member from the 174,700-dwt Vega Dream (built 2010) was transferred ashore after reporting that he felt unwell and was later confirmed as having Covid-19.

Late last month, 17 seafarers aboard an Oldendorff Carriers baby capesize tested positive for Covid-19 while anchored off Port Hedland.

However, the crew of the 115,000-dwt Patricia Oldendorff (built 2010) later reportedly recovered and the ship returned to service.