Eighteen people from the United States who had been aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, are back in the country and under quarantine, with one infected passenger being monitored in a Nebraska biocontainment unit.
The repatriation shifts the response from an overseas evacuation to U.S. medical monitoring. The Department of Health and Human Services said one American from the ship tested mildly PCR positive for Andes virus, a hantavirus variant, while another evacuee had mild symptoms. Three people have died since the outbreak began.
The returning group includes 17 U.S. citizens and one dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, a count CBS described broadly as 18 Americans. They were evacuated Sunday from Spain’s Canary Islands after the ship reached Tenerife and were flown back to the United States for isolation, assessment and monitoring.
Where the evacuees are being monitored
The flight carrying the U.S. evacuees arrived in Nebraska early Monday. Nebraska Medicine said the passenger who tested positive but had no symptoms would be taken to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit for follow-up testing and monitoring, while other passengers would go to the National Quarantine Unit.
HHS said the dual U.S.-U.K. citizen was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center in Omaha with 15 other repatriated passengers. Two passengers from the airlift, including one who had mild symptoms and traveled in a plane biocontainment unit, were sent to Emory University’s Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center in Atlanta.
Officials said the two people of greatest concern traveled in biocontainment units during the flight as a precaution. The positive passenger had no symptoms, according to Nebraska Medicine, but was managed separately from the other passengers during transport.
Why Andes virus is drawing attention
Andes virus is a type of hantavirus associated with rodents in South America and, less commonly, with transmission from infected people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says the rodents that carry Andes virus have not been found in the United States.
The virus can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe respiratory disease. The CDC also says Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to spread person to person, though that spread is usually limited to close contact with someone who is sick, including direct physical contact, prolonged time in close or enclosed spaces, or exposure to body fluids.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sought to temper public concern as the ship headed toward the Canary Islands, writing that the outbreak was serious but that “this is not another COVID-19” and that the current public health risk remained low.
That distinction is central to the response now unfolding in the United States: health officials are treating the exposure seriously enough to isolate and monitor passengers, while also emphasizing that the known pattern of Andes virus transmission is not the same as a broadly spreading respiratory pandemic.
The next measure of the outbreak’s reach will come from follow-up testing and symptom monitoring among the repatriated passengers in Nebraska and Atlanta. For now, the confirmed U.S. case remains under biocontainment care, and the rest of the returning group is being watched for any signs of illness.
نظرات (0)