{"id":723884,"date":"2026-06-24T21:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/723884\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T21:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:50:10","slug":"us-public-health-agency-concludes-hantavirus-response-as-outbreak-eases-health-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/723884\/","title":{"rendered":"US public health agency concludes hantavirus response as outbreak eases | Health News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Department of Health and Human Services has announced the end of the monitoring period for the virus.<\/p>\n

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Published On 24 Jun 202624 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has ended its response to the hantavirus outbreak linked \u2060to a cruise ship, nearly two months after the virus killed three people.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal first reported the development on Wednesday, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) later confirmed its efforts had reached a \u201csuccessful conclusion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cNo sustained transmission of Hantavirus occurred in the United States, and the monitoring period has concluded with no individuals remaining under observation,\u201d Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy \u200cJr said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The outbreak involved the Andes virus, a rare hantavirus strain that typically circulates in Argentina and Chile. The cruise ship set off from Argentina on April 1.<\/p>\n

There were 18 US residents on board the MV Hondius in the Atlantic when the outbreak began.<\/p>\n

All US citizens potentially exposed to hantavirus while on board finished their 42-day monitoring period on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The residents have since returned to their home states after completing monitoring at the National Quarantine Unit, \u2060according to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.<\/p>\n

No hantavirus cases were reported in the US. The CDC \u2060has repeatedly said the risk to the US public from the virus remains extremely low.<\/p>\n

A joint response by the CDC and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) collaborated with foreign governments, monitoring services and the healthcare system to address the outbreak, according to a statement by the HHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe successful conclusion of this response demonstrates the strength of a coordinated response to infectious disease threats that occur outside of our borders,\u201d CDC acting director, Jay Bhattacharya, said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Hantavirus spreads primarily through rodents, infecting people through contact with rats, mice or their urine, droppings and saliva. The virus can become airborne during the cleaning of infested areas.<\/p>\n

The Andes virus is the only known hantavirus \u2060that can spread through close, prolonged human-to-human contact.<\/p>\n

CDC \u2060scientists recently returned from Argentina, where they worked alongside public health officials there to investigate the outbreak, according to Brendan Jackson, \u200cacting director of the CDC\u2019s Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology.<\/p>\n

Jackson told reporters on a call that the scientists had trapped and tested rodents in areas connected to the cruise ship\u2019s route, to trace the outbreak\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n

Preliminary results from the rodent samples all came back negative, Jackson \u200csaid, \u200cadding that the likely source of exposure remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Department of Health and Human Services has announced the end of the monitoring period for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2420,97,3,13455,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-723884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-government","tag-health","tag-news","tag-science-and-technology","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}