Americans Aboard Hantavirus-Hit Cruise Ship Will Quarantine in Nebraska, Says CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on May 8 that Americans aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak, will be sent to a quarantine center in Nebraska.

The Dutch-flagged cruise ship, which has 17 Americans onboard, is expected to dock in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10, according to tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions.

The CDC said it will send a team of epidemiologists and medical personnel to the Canary Islands to conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American aboard the ship.

They will then be evacuated on a U.S. medical repatriation flight to Offut Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, before being transported to the national quarantine center at the University of Nebraska, it said.

“The U.S. government’s top priority is the safe repatriation of American passengers,” the CDC said in a statement.

The health regulator said it is closely monitoring the outbreak linked to the MV Hondius and determined that the risk to the American public remains low.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest update that there are eight suspected or confirmed hantavirus cases from the ship, including three deaths. Six of the cases were confirmed as Andes virus infections, a rare hantavirus strain that can spread between humans.

Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) said on May 8 that the Americans being monitored following the outbreak aboard the ship have not shown any symptoms of illness so far.

UNMC said it received a request from federal partners for the institution to receive and monitor the American passengers from the MV Hondius. They will undergo quarantine at the facility to allow for careful observation and prevent any potential risk of the virus spreading, it stated.

Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement that his teams are “prepared for situations exactly like this.”

“We understand situations like this can raise questions,” Ash said. “People should know these facilities were specifically designed to prevent exposure to the public. There is no risk to the community from people being cared for in these units.”

President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House on May 8 that the hantavirus outbreak is “under very good control.”

“They know the virus very well. It’s been around a long time, not easily transferable, unlike COVID, but we’ll see. We’re studying it very closely. We have very good people studying it very closely,” he said.

Health officials in New Jersey said on May 8 that two Garden State residents may have been exposed to someone with hantavirus who was a passenger on the MV Hondius.

The two New Jersey residents were not on board the ship, but had traveled on the same flight with the infected person, according to the New Jersey Department of Health.

Neither of them has symptoms of the virus, but they are being monitored as a precaution, health officials said.

Hantavirus is a viral disease most often transmitted through contact with the urine, feces, or saliva of infected rodents, and carries a mortality rate of 30 to 50 percent. The Andes strain can spread through human-to-human transmission, though it is rare and occurs only through “close and prolonged contact,” according to the WHO.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.