U.S. health officials will hold a news conference Monday morning to provide an update after the 17 Americans aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius arrived in Nebraska overnight, with passengers set to quarantine at a specialized facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha.
The passengers landed in Omaha about 1:30 a.m. CT via a State Department plane after the ship anchored in the Canary Islands Sunday. Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks had escorted the travelers from ship to shore in Tenerife in an effort that was continuing Monday.
One of the 17 American passengers evacuated from the ship and flown to Nebraska tested “mildly” positive but was not showing any symptoms, and another had mild symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday. The two traveled in the plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” HHS said.
“One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival, while other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring,” Kayla Thomas, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Medicine hospital that will help care for the passengers, said. “The passenger who is going to the Biocontainment Unit tested positive for the virus but does not have symptoms.”
Monday’s press conference is scheduled for 9 a.m., according to officials, with experts from Nebraska Medicine, UNMC and federal and state health officials expected to speak. As more details continue to unfold, here’s what we know right now.
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Why are the Americans quarantining in Nebraska?
The 17 passengers will be received at the National Quarantine Unit, a secured facility on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha, said Dr. Michael Wadman, the unit’s medical director.
There, teams will assess them and determine any necessary quarantine measures, he told reporters Friday. They will also be monitored daily.
The Biocontainment Unit treats patients with hazardous communicable diseases in sterile environments that maximize safety and containment. It features an isolation unit, a HEPA filtration system and specialized sterilization “autoclaves” with double doors to decontaminate waste and linens.
According to Wadman, there are 20 available spaces in the quarantine unit and each individual will have their own room and get food delivered to them. The passengers will have their vital signs monitored daily and have access to a team of health care workers, including infectious disease specialists and critical care physicians.
The medical school also has a special unit for treating people with highly infectious diseases that was used early in the pandemic for COVID-19 patients and previously for Ebola patients.
How many people have tested positive?
Early last month, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed a feverish illness on the cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Antarctica and some islands in the South Atlantic. He died less than a week later. More people became sick, including the man’s wife and a German woman, who both died.
Previously, a total of five people who left the ship tested positive, but that number has since grown.
Overnight, a French woman tested positive, with her health worsening in the hospital. The woman was among five French passengers repatriated Sunday to Paris from the MV Hondius, and developed symptoms on the flight, officials said.
One the 17 American passengers evacuated from the ship and flown to Nebraska also tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms,. Another did not test positive but had mild symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday.
WHO epidemiologist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove commented to pleas for help from online streamers during a hantavirus outbreak. “We are working with many, including everybody on board, to ensure not only do they have medical support… but also providing some psychosocial support as well.”
U.S. states where passengers were from
State and local health officials in the U.S. are monitoring at least eight passengers who disembarked on April 24 and returned home.
Georgia and Texas have each said they are monitoring two residents who were on the cruise ship. Arizona and Virginia are monitoring one each
California’s health department said Friday in a statement that at least one California resident remains on board the ship and one other returned to the state after disembarking.
New Jersey’s health department also said that two New Jersey residents who were not passengers on the ship were potentially exposed to an infected person “during air travel abroad.”
State health departments have not announced plans to isolate or test the returned passengers, citing the fact that none of them is showing signs of infection.
The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) said Thursday in a statement that the two residents who were on board are monitoring themselves for symptoms with daily temperature checks and will contact public health officials at any sign of possible illness.
“The passengers from Texas are not sick and did not have documented contact with a sick person on the ship, so there is no restriction on their movement,” Chris Van Deusen, director of media relations for Texas DSHS, said Friday in a statement. “If they develop any symptoms, they will contact public health and isolate. I don’t believe asymptomatic spread in the home is a concern.”
Arizona state health officials said Thursday at a press briefing that the resident there who returned from the cruise is being monitored for symptoms and having their temperature checked daily as well. The monitoring will last for 42 days, starting when the person departed the ship, said Ken Komatsu, Arizona’s state epidemiologist.
State health officials said it’s up to the local health department to decide whether to test the Arizona resident for hantavirus, but noted that any test results would likely be negative since the person is asymptomatic. The officials declined to share what county the Arizona resident is located in, citing respect for the person’s privacy.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses which can cause serious illness and death, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
Is Hantavirus contagious?
Hantavirus was first identified as a cause of sickness of one of the cases on May 2. The World Health Organization swung into action and by Monday was calling it an outbreak.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stressed that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak. “This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic,” he said Sunday.
Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
WHO is recommending that passengers’ home countries “have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” said Maria van Kerkhove, the organization’s top epidemiologist.
Numerous countries have said their people will be quarantined or hospitalized for observation.
At its Atlanta headquarters, the CDC has activated its Emergency Operations Center — a physical site where public health experts can track updates and coordinate their response to the outbreak. The agency has classified the hantavirus outbreak as a “level 3,” which is the lowest level of concern.
The strain of hantavirus involved in the cruise ship outbreak, known as the Andes strain, is the only version known to be transmissible between humans. Its primary route of transmission is contact with rodents or their urine, feces or saliva. The animal that carries the strain — the pygmy rice rat — is found in South America, not the U.S.
People are typically exposed to hantavirus around their homes, cabins or sheds, especially when cleaning enclosed spaces with little ventilation or exploring areas with mouse droppings.
Scientists are still trying to learn exactly how the Andes virus may be able to spread between people, said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. They suspect people could be infectious when they have symptoms, and, if the virus spreads, it may be transmitted through small liquid particles that blow out of an infected person when they talk, cough or sneeze.
Hantavirus symptoms
An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms including fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu.
Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one and eight weeks after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.
The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure.
Death rates vary by which hantavirus causes the illness. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is fatal in about 35% of people infected, while the death rate for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome varies from 1% to 15% of patients, according to the CDC.
