US cruise lines arrive in US after one tests positive for hantavirusExBulletin

American citizens arrive ashore on Sunday after being evacuated from the M/V Hondius in the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Chris McGrath/Getty Images .

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Seventeen American cruise passengers returned to the United States early Monday after weeks aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak, the Associated Press reported. The Americans disembarked from the cruise ship in the Canary Islands on Sunday and boarded a medical repatriation flight, organized by the US government, to Nebraska.

The Dutch-flagged cruise ship left southern Argentina on April 1 and followed a route across the South Atlantic with several stops at remote islands. Three of the passengers have died since the start of the epidemic.

On the flight back to the United States, one of the Americans tested “mildly” positive for the virus and another showed mild symptoms, according to an X post from the official @HHSGov account. The two potentially affected passengers were traveling in biocontainment units on board the plane, according to the X post.

Also on Monday, a French woman tested positive for hantavirus, French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said. The woman was one of five French passengers repatriated to Paris on Sunday.

What awaits the 17 American passengers

After landing at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, most passengers will head to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) for initial evaluation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The passenger with symptoms will be referred to another specialized treatment center, according to post X, without specifying where this would be.

“To the passengers getting off the ship, I would say, ‘Welcome to Nebraska.’ You come to the premier facility in the United States, if not the world, to take care of you,” says Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the UNMC College of Public Health.

The 17 American passengers are part of a total of nearly 150 people from 23 different countries who were on the ship. They endured a hantavirus outbreak that caused at least eight cases, including three deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The returning Americans had isolated themselves in their cruise cabins. They will now be monitored for several more weeks, US health authorities said in a media call on Saturday.

Most passengers arrive at America’s only federally funded quarantine unit, which also hosted cruise passengers from another outbreak — the Diamond Princess Cruise, in early 2020 — that was one of the first known superspreader events of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike COVID, which was a new pathogenic strain when it emerged, scientists have been studying hantaviruses — and particularly the Andean variant that caused this outbreak — for decades. “We know it’s possible to catch small clusters of diseases, but in 30 years we’ve never seen major outbreaks,” says Khan, “so it’s unlikely to be a pandemic.”

This strain of hantavirus can be deadly, but it is not very contagious between humans. This usually requires prolonged, close contact with someone who is showing symptoms.

So far, most American passengers are doing well. But symptoms can take up to 42 days after exposure to appear, according to the CDC.

“You have to be careful,” says Khan. “Monitor these people for 42 days [to make sure] they don’t get sick. And if they get sick during those 42 days, make sure you put them in isolation. »

Health officials said the U.S. passengers would all be clinically assessed upon arrival, but would not be formally quarantined. They suggested that some passengers could continue monitoring at home, with daily check-ins with their health departments.

Seven American passengers who left the cruise ship earlier are being monitored in several states, including Texas, California, Georgia and Virginia.

Public health experts have sounded the alarm over what they see as a quiet public response by the U.S. government to the outbreak.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, says the U.S. response has been fragmented, disjointed and delayed for weeks, but is finally coming together. “The CDC was gone for quite a long time,” he says. “Better late than never, but it’s 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. The U.S. government is leading a coordinated, interagency response led by the Department of State. » HHS, via ASPR [Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response] and the CDC, supports efforts to protect the health and safety of U.S. citizens, including repatriation, medical evaluation, and public health advice.

She further described the CDC’s response activities, including setting up its emergency operations center, deploying teams to the Canary Islands and Nebraska, and notifying state health departments of returning U.S. travelers.

Many of these activities have taken place recently, and Gostin agrees that the U.S. government is now taking active steps to ensure the safety of passengers, their families, and the communities to which they return.

But health officials were lucky this time: The Andean virus is not very contagious, and they say the outbreak will likely be contained. The way the United States handled this episode shows glaring gaps in its pandemic preparedness, Gostin says: “If this were a highly transmissible virus, you can imagine what chaos we would be facing now. »

Gostin believes the United States should invest more in the prevention, containment and control of infectious diseases.

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