90-Second Read: U.S. cruise passengers head to Nebraska for Hantavirus monitoring

Passengers are returning to their home countries after weeks on the ship at the center of a Hantavirus outbreak. They've endured in the midst of a Hantavirus outbreak which has caused at least eight cases, including three deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the passengers are arriving at America's only federally funded quarantine unit, which also received cruise passengers from a different outbreak, the Diamond Princess Cruise, in early 2020, which was one of the first known superspreading events of the COVID-19 pandemic. After landing at the Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, most passengers will head to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for an initial evaluation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the passengers getting.

Unlike COVID, which was a novel pathogenic strain when it emerged, scientists have been studying Hantaviruses, and specifically the Andes variant which caused this outbreak, for decades. We do know that you can get small clusters of disease, but in 30 years we've never seen any large outbreaks," says Khan, "so this is unlikely to become a pandemic." This strain of Hantavirus can be deadly, but it isn't very contagious between people. They suggested that some passengers could continue monitoring at home, with daily check-ins from their health departments. The passenger with symptoms will proceed to another specialized treatment center, according to the X post, though it did not specify where that would be. It tends to take prolonged, close contact with someone who's showing symptoms.

Most of the Americans aboard are headed for Nebraska to be evaluated by health officials. The two potentially affected passengers traveled in biocontainment units aboard the plane, according to the X post. Ali Khan, dean of the College of Public Health at UNMC. The returning Americans had been isolating in their cruise cabins. The CDC was missing in action for quite a long time," he says.

But symptoms can take up to 42 days after exposure to show up, according to the CDC. It's appropriate to be cautious," Khan says, "To monitor these people for 42 days [to make sure] they don't get sick. Better late than never, but it is very late." In response to a request for comment from NPR, Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services: "These claims are completely inaccurate. But health officials got lucky this time: the Andes virus is not very contagious, and health officials say this outbreak will likely be contained.