Eighteen passengers from the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius have been flown back to the United States and placed under quarantine after a hantavirus outbreak on board, the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday, with the one passenger who tested positive housed in a Nebraska biocontainment unit.
Sixteen of the evacuees are being monitored at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, while two — a couple, one of whom is symptomatic — were taken to Emory University Hospital’s biocontainment unit in Atlanta to preserve Nebraska’s surge capacity, officials said at a Washington press briefing reported by Ada Derana citing Reuters. The World Health Organization has now confirmed seven cases of the Andes hantavirus on the ship, the only hantavirus species known to be capable of limited person-to-person spread.
US Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brian Christine said the risk to the general public remains very low, adding that the Andes virus “does not spread easily” and generally requires prolonged close contact with a symptomatic person. Hantavirus is usually spread by wild rodents. The quarantined passengers, aged from late 20s to early 80s, could remain under monitoring for up to 42 days; the group includes 17 US citizens and one British dual national who chose to return to the United States.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the CDC had a team in place at Tenerife with airplanes ready to evacuate the patients. President Donald Trump, asked about Washington’s response, said: “I think (it was) fine.” Asked whether he regrets withdrawing the US from the WHO, Trump said, “No, I’m glad.”
The transfer follows an evacuation plan launched at Tenerife on 9 May, the cruise ship’s departure from Tenerife earlier in the week and a French national hospitalised in Paris with hantavirus symptoms after the evacuation flight. Three deaths have been linked to the MV Hondius outbreak since the original Andes virus alert.
