After being trapped on board a cruise ship during a hantavirus scare, over a dozen Americans arrived in Nebraska on Monday morning for monitoring, according to a story by The Daily Wire.
By Catholics for Catholics
After being trapped on board a cruise ship during a hantavirus scare, over a dozen Americans arrived in Nebraska on Monday morning for monitoring, according to a story by The Daily Wire.
After their vacation was disrupted by fears of the Andes strain, 17 Americans were airlifted by the State Department from the Dutch ship M.V. Hondius. The Department of Health and Human Services said that one passenger had tested positive for the virus while another showed mild symptoms.
HHS said Sunday that “two of the passengers traveling in the plane’s biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution. One passenger currently has mild symptoms and another passenger tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus.”
The passengers were transported to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. The passengers are expected to be quarantined for 42 days while they undergo testing.
“Upon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition,” HHS said.
The person who tested positive for the virus had no symptoms, according to Nebraska Medicine.
“The passenger who is going to the Biocontainment Unit tested positive for the virus but does not have symptoms,” Nebraska Medicine said. “They were managed separately from other passengers during transport using appropriate biocontainment measures. They will be monitored in the Biocontainment Unit out of an abundance of caution and follow-up testing will be performed.”
Still, on Monday, health officials from HHS and Nebraska Medicine reiterated that there is a “very low” risk to the public from the virus and explained more about what it meant that one of the passengers tested “mildly positive” for the virus.
Centers for Disease Control official Brendan Jackson said that testing positive for the virus was a “range” and that there had been a positive and negative test.
“There’s sort of a range,” he said. “We just want to make sure there’s further testing to evaluate that at this point.”
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