The 17 Americans who were aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius have now arrived home in the United States.
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A State Department plane carrying them landed at Omaha Eppley Airfield in Nebraska at about 2:30 a.m. ET Monday, and the passengers were due to be assessed and monitored at a nearby medical center.
Two Americans traveled in the plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
One passenger who is suffering mild symptoms will be taken to a second site to be treated separately, HHS said. Another passenger tested “mildly” positive for the Andes strain of the virus, it said.
“Upon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition,” the department said.
One British national with U.S. citizenship was also on the flight, Spanish authorities said earlier.
Meanwhile, a woman who was among five French passengers repatriated Sunday to Paris from the Hondius has tested positive for hantavirus and her health worsened in the hospital overnight, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday.
The luxury cruise ship arrived early Sunday at the island of Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of west Africa. Its long and arduous journey saw six confirmed cases and two suspected cases of the disease, usually associated with rodents, and the deaths of three passengers.
The Dutch-flagged Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 with almost 150 on board on a nature sightseeing mission via some of the world’s most remote points.
A Dutch passenger then died at sea 11 days later. His body was taken off the ship as it stopped as the remote Atlantic island of St Helena. That passenger’s wife traveled from there to Johannesburg where she died in hospital days later, after being removed from a flight to Amsterdam because of her deteriorating condition.
U.S. health officials said 16 of the Americans would be treated at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha.
Omaha Mayor John W. Ewing Jr. said Sunday night: “We are confident in the quality of care that these individuals will receive along with the protocols to keep healthcare workers safe.”
A plane carrying 14 Spanish passengers took off for Madrid on Sunday, while French, Canadian and British passengers were also flown back to their countries.
A medical tent was set up to receive the passengers, with health officials wearing full-body protective clothing. Locals in Tenerife had opposed the ship’s arrival and raised fears that hantavirus could spread beyond the Hondius’ crew and guests, but these concerns were overruled by Spain’s national government in Madrid.
Hantavirus infections among people are rare and have never previously been recorded on a cruise ship.
A World Health Organization investigation is under way to pinpoint the origin of this outbreak, with particular attention placed on a birdwatching trip in southern Argentina, which the first passenger to die took part in before joining the cruise.
American and global health officials have stressed throughout this outbreak that the risk to the wider public is low and that transmission is only possible through close contact.
