The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reportedly sending personnel to the Canary Islands to meet the cruise ship affected by the hantavirus outbreak, with plans to accompany American passengers back to the US on a chartered flight and place them into quarantine in Nebraska.
An additional CDC team is already headed to Nebraska, according to unnamed sources who spoke with CNN. The sources indicated that passengers are expected to undergo quarantine measures there to help prevent any possible spread of the virus. Nebraska is home to both the federally supported National Quarantine Unit and the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit.
“Nebraska Medicine and UNMC remain in close coordination with national partners regarding the evolving situation with the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship,” Nebraska Medicine said in a statement to CNN.
“We cannot discuss specific communications at this time, but, our specialized teams, including the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and National Quarantine Unit, are staffed and ready, if needed, to safely provide care while protecting our staff and the community,” the statement added.
A spokesperson for the US state department confirmed to CNN that the agency was organizing the repatriation effort alongside the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Spanish government. The spokesperson said the agency was “in direct communication with Americans on board and are prepared to provide consular assistance as soon as the ship arrives in Tenerife, Spain”.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey department of health announced on Friday that it was monitoring two of the state’s residents for potential exposure to hantavirus following an international flight.
The CDC alerted state health officials that the two individuals may have had contact with an infected person during an international flight. The New Jersey residents were not passengers on the ship – the individual with whom they may have had contact had recently departed the Hondius.
Neither resident had any symptoms at the time of the announcement, but both were being monitored as a precaution, the New Jersey health department said.
New Jersey health authorities said the risk to the general public remained very low. The state said it had no current hantavirus cases nor has any confirmed case ever been reported there.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship’s operator, estimates that 17 Americans are onboard the vessel.
The World Health Organization has been coordinating the international response to the outbreak with multiple countries. However, experts say that US leadership has largely been missing from the broader global hantavirus response since Donald Trump withdrew from the organization shortly after taking office.
There are now three suspected and five confirmed cases of Andes virus, a type of hantavirus that can sometimes spread with close, intimate contact but is typically spread by rodents. Three people have died, and three have been hospitalized, including in intensive care – though those patients are showing signs of improving, officials said on Thursday.
