Before returning home, American guests from a cruise ship affected by the hantavirus will make a detour at a facility in Nebraska. What we know is as follows:

 The 17 Americans who disembarked from the cruise ship near the epicenter of the hantavirus outbreak on Sunday were being flown back to the United States, first to Nebraska, where the highly specialized National Quarantine Unit is located.

The World Health Organization claims that the virus, which is usually linked to rodents, may have spread from person to person on the MV Hondius cruise liner. Three members of the ship have passed away since April 11, and a few more are ill.

 

The US Department of Health and Human Services announced late on Sunday that one American had tested positive for the virus and another had minor symptoms. In a post on X, HHS stated that both were flying in biocontainment units "out of an abundance of caution."

 

The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha announced late on Sunday that the passenger who tested positive does not exhibit any symptoms and will be transported straight to the biocontainment unit. The remaining travelers will be evaluated and observed at the National Quarantine Unit.

 

CNN has contacted HHS to request additional details about the travelers.

 This is all the information we have regarding how the American travelers will return to the US and what will happen to them after they get there.

 

 

EVALUATION IN THE CANARY ISLANDS

On Sunday night, the passengers were observed being transported from the cruise liner to shore on smaller boats while donning blue masks and protective gear.

According to a CDC official, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel were scheduled to assess the US passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship as well as one British national who lives in the US in Tenerife.

 

ONE MORE VISIT TO OMAHA

According to US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after returning to the United States, the passengers would be airlifted to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for additional evaluation.

According to Nebraska Medicine, the Omaha facility is "the only federally funded quarantine unit in the United States, designed specifically to safely house and monitor people who may have been exposed to high-consequence infectious diseases."

 

Twenty 300-square-foot, single-person rooms have negative air pressure devices installed to keep any potential diseases at bay. For patients staying for extended periods of time, doctors there compare them to hotel rooms with built-in restrooms, exercise equipment, food delivery, and Wi-Fi.

Earlier, a CDC official stated that the agency was viewing this as a quick visit to keep an eye on the health of the cruise ship passengers rather than a quarantine.

 

Dr. H. Dele Davis, the hospital's acting chancellor, told CNN that the 18 travelers will be examined for signs of the early stages of hantavirus, such as fever, muscle aches, and diarrhea.
According to a CDC official, passengers who do not exhibit symptoms will not be tested for the hantavirus because it is not advised to do so.

 

According to Nebraska Medicine officials, anyone who does become ill may be moved to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, a specialized facility on-site that previously treated patients during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and some of the first Covid-19 patients from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in 2020.

 

The remaining passengers will subsequently be transported by airlift to one of over a dozen Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers, which are regional centers dedicated to special pathogen preparedness. The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, a division of HHS, collaborates closely with the centers. If safety procedures permit, the passengers will also have the choice to return home following their evaluation in Omaha, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday.

 

The CDC will interview the travelers to assess their risk, according to Bhattacharya, who is also the agency's interim director. If they did not interact with someone who was exhibiting symptoms, they would be considered "low risk."
The CDC would advise the travelers to "stay in Nebraska if they'd like, or if they want to go back home and their home situation allows it, to safely drive them home without exposing others on the way, and then be put in the control... under the auspices of their state and local public health agencies," according to Bhattacharya.

 

 

MONITORING EVERY DAY AT HOME

 

According to a CDC official, the passengers will be monitored at home every day for the next 42 days when they return home.
According to Nebraska Medicine, the objective is to keep an eye on the travelers during the virus's up to six-week incubation phase and lower the chance of the illness spreading.

Passengers who do not test positive will not be placed in quarantine, according to health officials, but they will be instructed to take particular safety measures.

 A CDC representative stated, "If it's a high-risk exposure, there will be some modified activities that we would recommend, limiting activities outside the house that don't involve extensive interactions with other people." "They should also collaborate with their health departments regarding the environment surrounding other activities."

 

HOW WE ARRIVED AND WHAT COMES NEXT

According to the WHO, there is still little risk to the general population from the hantavirus outbreak, which was initially reported to them on May 2.
Although this strain, the Andes virus, can occasionally pass person-to-person through extremely close, continuous contact with an infected individual, the Hantavirus usually infects people by contact with rodent urine or droppings.
According to a person with knowledge of the issue, the CDC has designated its hantavirus response as Level 3, the organization's lowest level of emergency.

As of May 8, the MV Hondius cruise ship was linked to eight cases in total: two probable cases and six lab-confirmed cases.
Spanish health authorities reported that all of the passengers who were tested on Sunday after the ship docked in Tenerife were asymptomatic. The prime minister of France stated that all five evacuees on that aircraft will be placed under isolation protocols after one of the passengers later displayed symptoms when returning home.

 

 

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE FATALITIES ON CRUISE SHIPS

 

Following a possible hantavirus outbreak on a ship that is currently stranded in the Canary Islands, where passengers started to depart on May 10, three people have died and numerous others are ill.

Five states—Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia—are keeping an eye on seven additional American passengers who earlier disembarked the ship, according to officials.
Utah confirmed that at least one passenger was from that state, and New Jersey stated it is also keeping an eye on two individuals who were exposed.

Fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, breathing difficulties, and chest pain are some of the symptoms.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that this hantavirus epidemic is "not another Covid-19" in an attempt to allay worries before the passengers disembarked.