90-Second Read: Hantavirus cruise ship quarantine orders are based on a disease list that doesn’t include Hantavirus

Andes Hantavirus is missing from a key disease list that backs up federal quarantine orders. The deadly Hantavirus that has killed three passengers from a cruise ship does not appear on a key list that gives the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention its expansive detention powers, a public health law expert told Healthbeat. Until this week, federal officials had requested, but not mandated, that 18 U.S. passengers from the M/V Hondius cruise ship undergo medical screening and observation at a Nebraska quarantine facility through May 31, which would be the 21st day of their monitoring period.

At issue: Federal regulations only allow the CDC to quarantine people for specific "quarantinable communicable diseases" that are on a list created through presidential executive orders. On Tuesday the CDC announced that it had issued federal quarantine orders to two of the passengers at the Nebraska facility, requiring that they stay until the monitoring period is over. It's unclear whether the executive order was intended to apply to diseases such as those caused by the Andes strain of Hantavirus, which has shown the ability to spread from person to person for many years.

Given the broadly written definition of severe acute respiratory syndromes in the Obama order, Hodge said the CDC is seeking to make the case that the Andes Hantavirus qualifies as a quarantinable disease. But he said the passengers subject to this week's quarantine orders also have the potential to make several arguments if they choose to challenge the orders in court, including that the virus wasn't specified as a quarantinable disease. The list includes a wide range of dangerous diseases: viral hemorrhagic fevers, infectious tuberculosis, measles, severe acute respiratory syndromes, and flu that can cause a pandemic.