Americans enter quarantine after returning from hantavirus cruise ship 02:46
Seventeen Americans and a dual British-American citizen evacuated from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak arrived in the United States early Monday.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said late Sunday that one American on the repatriation flight “tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus,” which is linked to the outbreak, and another American began to show symptoms.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the two passengers “traveled in the aircraft’s biocontainment unit out of an abundance of caution.” A statement from the University of Nebraska Medical Center said the passenger who tested positive was not experiencing any symptoms.
Most were sent to the Nebraska Quarantine and Biological Control Unit
The U.S.-bound flight landed in Omaha early Monday, and a convoy, ambulances and multiple buses took the passengers to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where 16 of them will remain for monitoring.
Two other passengers were flown to Atlanta, home of the CDC, for further evaluation and care, said Brendan Jackson, acting director of the CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology.
Health officials said at a news conference Monday that 15 people from the Nebraska group were sent to the state quarantine center at the Medical Center and one person was sent to the biological control center there.
Angela Hewlett, an infectious disease physician and medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Center, said as of Monday morning, the person providing hospital care at the biocontainment center was “doing well” and had no symptoms.
Michael Wadman, an emergency physician and medical director of the quarantine unit, said the 15 people who went to the unit were “in good health” and “in good spirits.” Wardman said none of them had symptoms as of Monday morning and were being monitored in the unit, which he said was more like a hotel than a care setting.
Wardman described the transfer of the 15 people to the unit as smooth, safe and successful.
There have been at least 10 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus on board the MV Hondius, including three deaths: a Dutch couple and a German woman. Patients involved in the hantavirus outbreak tested positive for the Andes strain of the virus, which can be spread from person to person. Hantaviruses are usually spread by rodents.
MV Hondius arrived in the port of Granadilla, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 10, 2026. / Photo credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The French prime minister said on Sunday afternoon that one of his country’s citizens also began to show symptoms on the repatriation flight, before releasing details about the arrivals. French Prime Minister Sebastien Le Cornou said on social media that all five passengers on the flight were “immediately placed in strict quarantine until further notice” and would be tested.
The country’s health minister later told France Internationale that the woman had tested positive for hantavirus and that her condition had worsened.
The complex and discreet disembarkation process
The MV Hondius set sail from Cape Verde for Granadilla earlier this week, carrying nearly 150 people from more than 15 countries, including 17 Americans, after Spain agreed to take delivery of the ship.
Passengers began disembarking from the cruise ship on Sunday morning after it docked in Spain’s Canary Islands. They were carefully evacuated according to nationality and placed on repatriation flights. The Spanish nationals were the first to disembark before boarding a plane bound for Madrid, where they were taken to a military hospital. French and British passengers were also evacuated.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the ship’s operator, said all passengers and some of the approximately 60 crew members were evacuated from the ship using launch boats, each of which can carry up to five to 10 people.
People are then checked to see if they have symptoms. Authorities said the passengers and crew had no contact with local residents on Tenerife before being taken to the evacuation flight. A video shared by the Spanish Defense Ministry shows the inside of a repatriation flight, showing surfaces wrapped in plastic and crew members wearing protective gear.
On May 10, 2026, at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, a Spanish passenger was sprayed with disinfectant by Spanish government officials before boarding the plane after disembarking from the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius. /Image source: Associated Press
The operation in Tenerife is overseen by Spain’s health and interior ministers and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.
Although health officials said the risk to the public from the cruise ship outbreak remained low, disembarkers and port staff wore masks, gowns, respirators and other protective equipment during the evacuation.
After disembarking, a skeleton crew will take supplies and begin the journey to Rotterdam, Netherlands, which is expected to take about five days, Oceanwide Expeditions said. Spanish authorities said the bodies of passengers who died on board will also remain on board and will be disinfected upon arrival in Rotterdam.
A member of the National Guard sets up a tent at the expected reception point for MV Hondius passengers. / Photo credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Quarantine protocol
U.S. citizens were among the last evacuees on Sunday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was sending a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands to “conduct an exposure risk assessment for each U.S. passenger and provide recommendations on the level of surveillance required.”
After disembarking from the Hondius, the 18 people returned to the United States on a plane sent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Nebraska Medicine Davis Global Center in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 10, 2026. / Photo credit: Rebecca S. Gratz/AP
Passengers who tested positive were “managed separately from other passengers using appropriate biocontainment measures during transportation,” the medical center said.
The university’s statement did not mention the passengers who the Department of Health and Human Services said were symptomatic.
On May 10, 2026, the MV Hondius docked at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Workers arrived wearing protective clothing. / Photo credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Dr. Wadman of the National Quarantine Department previously said that each of them will have their own room during the quarantine for an unspecified period of time.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the seven Americans who left the cruise ship earlier had been in the United States for about two weeks and had returned to several different states. Health officials said they are being monitored and none are showing symptoms. One of the returning Americans is a Northern California resident, according to the Santa Clara Public Health Department.
Each country has developed its own quarantine plan. British authorities said British passengers and crew will be sent to hospitals for observation upon their return home, while the 14 Spaniards will be quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid.
In France, Le Cornu said that in addition to quarantining passengers on repatriation flights, he would also issue a decree to “implement appropriate quarantine measures for close contacts to protect the general population.”
Officials insist risk to public is low
Hantaviruses are a group of diseases that are transmitted to humans through rodent urine, feces or saliva, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can take up to eight weeks after exposure for symptoms to appear.
The WHO said the Andean strain found in Latin America is the only one known to be able to spread the virus through person-to-person contact, and Tedros assessed the public risk as “low.”
He told CBS News at a Sunday morning press conference that Americans “should not be concerned” about the imminent return of cruise ship passengers and encouraged people to trust health officials.
“This is not another COVID-19 outbreak and the risk to the public is very low. Therefore, they should not be afraid and they should not panic,” Tedros said. He also said that years of scientific assessment of the virus and its behavior, as well as how the virus has behaved so far in this particular outbreak, informed this judgment.
Tedros’ assessment was echoed by the CDC’s acting director. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that U.S. passengers being brought home may reach the peak of the virus’s incubation period this week and are “close to the end of the transmission window.”
A Guardia Civil ship is moored in front of the MV Hondius after docking in the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, May 10, 2026. / Photo credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Outbreak Timeline
The source of the epidemic is still under investigation. Tedros said that before boarding the ship, the Dutch couple who died – a 70-year-old man and his 69-year-old wife – are believed to have spent weeks traveling through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a birding trip in areas where rodents carrying the Andes virus are known to exist.
The WHO said the man developed symptoms on April 6 and died on the ship on April 11, but no samples were taken because his symptoms were similar to other respiratory viruses and hantavirus was not suspected at the time.
When the ship docked at St. Helena in British territorial waters, his wife also came ashore. The World Health Organization said she developed severe symptoms on a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 25 and died in South Africa the next day. Tests confirmed she had hantavirus infection.
The German woman developed symptoms on April 28 and died on the ship on May 2, according to the World Health Organization.
This week, three other patients were flown from the ship to the Netherlands for emergency medical care, and a Swiss man who began showing symptoms after disembarking is being treated in Zurich. A British man was flown to South Africa for medical evacuation, while another British national who disembarked was hospitalized on the British territory of Tristan da Cunha.
Oceanwide Expeditions said 32 passengers from about a dozen countries boarded the Hondius in St. Helena, including a Dutch woman who died days later. Those U.S. passengers who returned before the outbreak was detected are being monitored by state health agencies in California, Georgia, Texas, Virginia and Arizona.
The Hondius departed from Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1 and traveled to various islands in the South Atlantic from April 21 to 24, including South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island, and then St. Helena.
The ship then anchored off the coast of Cape Verde, a West African island, for several days before heading to the Canary Islands.
