17 U.S. Passengers Evacuated From Hantavirus-Hit Ship Land In Nebraska—One Tests Positive

Seventeen U.S. passengers evacuated from a cruise ship affected by Hantavirus—one of whom has tested positive—arrived in Nebraska early Monday. Health officials said the positive case was confirmed just hours before, and another passenger is experiencing mild symptoms.

Tracking data on Flight Aware showed that the evacuated passengers were flown on board a Boeing 747 jet operated by Kallita Air, an American cargo plane company headquartered in Michigan. The plane landed at Eppley Airfield at 2:29 a.m. CDT after nine and half hours flight.

The HHS says passengers will first be taken to the Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The passenger who tested positive will be placed in a separate biocontainment unit at the facility.

At the respective facilities, the evacuees will undergo “clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition.” It is unclear if the other passengers will be tested again after landing in the U.S. On Saturday, CDC officials said the passengers would not be tested because they were not symptomatic, but it’s unclear whether the positive test and one symptomatic passenger have changed that.

A spokesperson for the University of Nebraska Medical Center told the Associated Press that the passenger who tested positive will be taken into “the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival,” while other passengers “will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring.” Is a press conference on Friday, the center’s officials said that each individual quarantining at the facility will have their own rooms. “Each of the rooms looks very much like like a hotel room, with the availability of Wi-Fi, exercise equipment. If the quarantine is prolonged, those would be important in terms of making sure they’re comfortable.”

The National Quarantine Unit, opened in 2019, is a federally funded facility that can accommodate 20 patients in individual rooms. It features negative air pressure systems to stop contaminated air from recirculating and to help prevent the spread of airborne pathogens. The biocontainment unit, a separate isolated section of the facility, is designed to provide medical care for patients with highly hazardous communicable diseases.