Dozens of passengers, including 18 people in the U.S., are currently being monitored in medical facilities for hantavirus tied to the deadly outbreak on board the cruise ship MV Hondius. The individuals evacuated from the ship to the U.S. on Sunday included 17 Americans and one British dual national, U.S. health officials said on Monday.
A total of 16 people are currently at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Fifteen are in the quarantine unit, which is for people who feel well and is similar to a group of hotel rooms. One person, who tested positive but is asymptomatic, is in the biocontainment unit, which is more like a hospital setting.
Two other people are at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. One is symptomatic and is staying in the biocontainment unit, while the other person is considered a close contact and is undergoing monitoring.
On Monday, a French passenger also tested positive for the virus. French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said her condition was deteriorating.
In its latest update on Monday, the World Health Organization said there are a total of nine hantavirus cases, seven of which are confirmed. Two more cases are suspected of being hantavirus. So far, three people have died: a Dutch couple and a German national.
A dozen countries, including the U.S., were also scrambling to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked on April 24 on the island of St. Helena, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic, without contact tracing.
Health officials in Arizona, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia are monitoring residents for potential infections linked to the cruise ship. None of the states have reported any cases.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, has previously said the first two cases — a Dutch couple — had traveled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip “which included visits to sites where the species of rat known to carry the virus was present,” according to the BBC. The WHO has stressed that the risk of a wider outbreak remains “absolutely low.”
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