90-Second Read: US spends $750,000 to retrieve American from island after Hantavirus isolation

The State Department spent three-quarters of a million dollars to sail an American citizen who was exposed to Hantavirus off a remote British island in the South Pacific. The woman was exposed to Hantavirus in April while aboard the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, according to two government officials and a government document obtained by the Associated Press. A local government spokesperson told the BBC last month that the person "had contact with a Hantavirus-exposed individual" but was "showing no signs of illness." Three people have died as a result of the cruise ship outbreak.

The woman disembarked the MV Hondius and eventually traveled to Pitcairn Island through San Francisco and Fiji. The hefty expenditure on her evacuation further strains the State Department's emergency budget, which has already been taxed by the war with Iran and the recent Ebola outbreak. The boat is transporting the woman some 1,200 miles to Easter Island, a Chilean territory.

The island's airport offers service to Santiago, from where she can return to the United States. Pitcairn Island's roughly 50 inhabitants are primarily descended from nine British sailors who mutinied on the HMS Bounty in 1789. Ocean Expedition's MV Hondius left Patagonia with roughly 150 passengers on April 1.