Hantavirus Outbreak: US Passengers Evacuated From Cruise Ship Head Home to Nebraska

A CDC-chartered flight carrying 17 Americans from the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius is en route to Nebraska as the repatriation operation unfolds in Tenerife. The Silicon Review reports on the level 3 hantavirus outbreak response.

The first U.S. government-chartered flight carrying American passengers from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is en route from Tenerife, Spain, to Omaha, Nebraska, as a carefully coordinated international repatriation operation enters its final phase.

Seventeen U.S. nationals are aboard the flight, which is scheduled to land at Offutt Air Force Base early Monday, May 11. From there, passengers will be transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center's National Quarantine Unit the only federally funded quarantine facility in the United States. The state-of-the-art 20-bed unit, which opened in November 2019, features negative air pressure systems designed to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius has claimed three lives: a Dutch couple and a German passenger. According to the World Health Organization, eight cases have been reported (six confirmed, two suspected), caused by the Andes virus the only hantavirus strain known to transmit from person to person through close, prolonged contact with a symptomatic individual .

The CDC has classified the outbreak as a Level 3 emergency response, the agency's lowest activation level. CDC acting director Jay Bhattacharya told reporters that none of the returning passengers are currently symptomatic, and the risk of a major outbreak remains "extremely low." 

"The passengers will walk off the plane and into a vehicle and get driven to their quarantine room," said Professor John Lowe, director of the Nebraska Medical Center's biocontainment unit. "It's pretty much like living in a hotel room with delivery of food." 

All repatriated passengers will undergo a 42-day monitoring period, reflecting the virus's incubation window, and will be expected to self-isolate under supervision from local health departments with CDC support.

Seven additional U.S. passengers had already returned independently and are being monitored from their home states, including two in Georgia, two in Texas, one in Virginia, one in Arizona, and an unspecified number in California.

French authorities have confirmed one positive case among their five repatriated nationals, with the remaining four testing negative but remaining in isolation for at least 15 days. The evacuation is being managed by nationality, with flights organized for passengers from Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, followed by a final flight to Australia carrying six passengers from Australia, New Zealand, and other Asian countries.

As hantavirus-stricken cruise ship passengers begin returning to U.S. soil for quarantine and monitoring, The Silicon Review examines the unprecedented international response and why this rare Andes virus outbreak, while deadly, is unlikely to spark another pandemic.