90-Second Read: Flatwater Explains: Why are Hantavirus patients in Omaha?

As of Wednesday, public health officials were monitoring 16 of the patients in the Quarantine Unit, including one who had previously tested positive. Unlike more common Hantavirus strains that are only spread by rodents, this particular type of virus, known as Andes Hantavirus, can spread between people in close contact. Along with the 20-bed National Quarantine Unit, Nebraska still has a dedicated biocontainment unit with 10 beds to isolate and treat patients who are sick with a high-risk infectious disease. The unit saw its first patients in 2014 when Americans in West Africa needed to be medically evacuated after being infected with Ebola.

There are 12 other federally designated regional biocontainment units across the country and there's a national plan to distribute patients among those units to manage capacity, Vasa said. The biocontainment team has not simulated Hantavirus specifically, Vasa said. Hantavirus has attributes of both viral-hemorrhagic fevers, like Ebola or Lassa fever, and respiratory illnesses like COVID-19, so staff is combining protocols from the unit's previous activations to customize its response. UNMC and Nebraska Medicine have had a dedicated biocontainment unit since 2005.

A nearly $20 million federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services led to the creation of the National Quarantine Unit in 2019. Nebraska Medicine's contract with the federal government requires that it be ready to quarantine as many as 20 people for 30 days, though it can be extended for illnesses that require longer quarantines, Vasa said. The biocontainment unit is more like a hospital ward, where sick patients are able to receive intensive care. Because Nebraska has both units, patients can easily be transferred back and forth for treatment, Vasa said.

The hospital is always ready to move those patients within four hours if the unit is activated, Vasa said. When she was an ICU nurse, Vasa applied to be on the biocontainment team and worked with patients during the previous activations. It's the only federally funded resource of its kind, with 20 rooms to safely quarantine and care for Americans who have been exposed to deadly infectious diseases with few treatment options.