U.S. monitors hantavirus cases after cruise ship outbreak, risk remains low

Health officials are monitoring 18 Americans after a hantavirus outbreak aboard the M/V Hondius, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the U.S. public remains extremely low. Two people are being watched in Atlanta and 16 others are being monitored in Nebraska, where federal and state officials are using a specialized quarantine unit built for exactly this kind of response.

The ship left Argentina on April 1 and later reached Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands, where CDC epidemiologists and medical professionals were sent to assess each American passenger’s exposure risk before repatriation. The U.S. government then flew the passengers to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, and transferred them to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska. Officials said one passenger tested positive and another was showing mild symptoms, while the rest were being observed as a precaution.

The outbreak on board has been linked to Andes virus, a rare hantavirus strain that can spread person to person, but usually only after prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic. That distinction is why public-health officials are pressing the message that the wider threat is low even as they continue aggressive monitoring. Officials have cited six confirmed hantavirus cases and two suspected cases aboard the ship, along with three deaths, and they are treating the situation as a serious containment effort rather than evidence of broad community spread.

The Nebraska facility is the nation’s only federally funded quarantine unit. It opened in November 2019 with a previous $20 million Health and Human Services grant and has 20 beds plus negative-air-pressure systems designed for highly contagious diseases. University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine said they were asked by the federal government to receive and monitor U.S. citizens from the ship, and Nebraska officials said there is no risk to the surrounding community from people being cared for there. State and local agencies, including the Douglas County Health Department and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, are working with federal partners on the response.

The passengers are expected to remain in Nebraska for an undefined period while they are monitored. Officials said that if they continue to show no symptoms, they would not need EMS transport and would simply walk off the plane and into the facility. Nebraska leaders backed the operation, with Gov. Jim Pillen saying his office was in constant touch with federal officials and Omaha Mayor John Ewing saying the city was proud to answer the call. The quarantine unit has been used before for COVID-19 patients and for two doctors infected with Ebola in 2014, reinforcing its role as a rare national backstop when contagious-disease risks must be managed carefully without stirring unnecessary alarm.