{"id":210464,"date":"2026-05-12T05:08:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/american-passengers-from-hantavirus-hit-cruise-ship-arrive-back-in-the-u-s-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T05:08:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:08:57","slug":"american-passengers-from-hantavirus-hit-cruise-ship-arrive-back-in-the-u-s-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/american-passengers-from-hantavirus-hit-cruise-ship-arrive-back-in-the-u-s-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"American passengers from hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrive back in the U.S. – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The 18 Americans who were aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius arrived back in the U.S. on Monday, and two of them are in biocontainment units in Omaha, Nebraska, and Atlanta.
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Those two Americans traveled in the plane\u2019s biocontainment units \u201cout of an abundance of caution,\u201d the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
Most of the Americans were taken to a facility in Nebraska, but two, a passenger on the ship and a close contact, were taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, officials said.
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at Emory said Monday that the system was working as intended.
\u201cWe have been preparing for years for viruses such as Andes viruses,\u201d said Dr. Aneesh Mehta, chief of infectious disease services at Emory University Hospital.
Since the ship, the MV Hondius, departed Argentina on April 1, there have been seven confirmed cases of hantavirus and three others identified as possible. Three of the 10 people have died.
The luxury cruise ship arrived early Sunday at the island of Tenerife, the largest of Spain\u2019s Canary Islands off West Africa, where passengers started repatriating to their home countries. Passengers received health screenings upon arrival in Spain, the country\u2019s Health Ministry said in a statement.
A little more than two dozen crew members remained on board Monday to continue to the Netherlands.
\u201cLet me be crystal clear: the risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low. The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic,\u201d said Dr. Brian Christine, DHS\u2019 assistant secretary for health.
U.S. health officials said 16 of the Americans would be treated at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center\/Nebraska Medicine (UNMC) in Omaha.
The two other passengers were taken to Emory University\u2019s Serious Communicable Diseases unit in Atlanta, with one receiving care in the biocontainment unit for mild symptoms. The other passenger is the person\u2019s significant other and is being monitored because they were in close contact with the symptomatic person, Emory University said.
The American passengers range in age from the late 20s to the early 80s.
Two are from New York state \u2014\u00a0including one from New York City \u2014 one is from North Carolina, and two are from California, officials said. Two other Californians are being monitored in that state after either having been on the ship or on a plane with an ill passenger, the state health officer said.
Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC\u2019s acting director of high-consequence pathogens and pathology, said at a news conference Monday that it is relatively normal for people in quarantine to show symptoms during isolation and that officials are being \u201cvery liberal\u201d with how they are describing symptoms.
Having symptoms does not necessarily mean a patient has contracted hantavirus, Jackson said. Hantavirus usually requires very close contact and symptoms for a patient to pass it on.
Jackson said the decision to send two passengers to Atlanta was \u201ccontingency planning\u201d to keep spaces open at Omaha\u2019s UNMC should they need more room.
At UNMC, 15 patients are in the quarantine unit, and one is in the biocontainment unit, said Dr. Michael Wadman, medical director of the National Quarantine Unit.
Dr. Angela Hewlitt, medical director of the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, said Monday that it is being used for patients who are well but need to be monitored. She described it as \u201cmore like a hotel than a patient care space.\u201d
In the unit, which is equipped like an intensive care unit, patients can range from well and stable to critically ill. The one Hondius passenger in biocontainment at UNMC is doing well and does not have symptoms, Hewlitt said.
Hondius passengers will stay at UNMC for a few days for assessments and next steps, but a full 42-day monitoring period will be required for all of those who were on the ship, Jackson said. Patients may be able to go home during that period, but only if they have support to isolate at home.
One traveler, Jake Rosmarin, posted from his quarantine room \u201cto let everyone know I\u2019m okay and feeling well.\u201d He wrote on Instagram<\/a> that the \u201crepatriation flight was smooth\u201d and that he arrived safely in Nebraska. A photo of his room showed that it has no windows but appeared to have a spin bike and a smart TV.
\u201cIt\u2019s been a very long few days, but hopefully I can start giving more updates again soon,\u201d Rosmarin wrote. \u201cThank you again to everyone who has been supportive throughout all of this; it truly means a lot.\u201d
In a video shared Monday morning<\/a>, Jan Dobrogowski, the captain of the Hondius, thanked passengers and crew members, acknowledging the difficult weeks they have faced on board.
\u201cAt sea, people depend on each other,\u201d Dobrogowski said. \u201cThere\u2019s no readily available risk services standing by to come to your house in an emergency, so perseverance is an expected quality, perhaps; but I\u2019ve seen, I\u2019ve witnessed, way more, way more this time around.\u201d
Dobrogowski took time to thank the crew for their \u201ccourage and their selfless resolve that they showed time and again in the most difficult moments.\u201d
He expressed condolences for those whose lives were lost and asked for privacy for himself, his crew and the guests on the voyage.
The Dutch-flagged Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 with almost 150 on board on a nature sightseeing mission via some of the world\u2019s most remote points.
A Dutch passenger died at sea 11 days later. His body was taken off the ship as it stopped at the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena. The passenger\u2019s wife traveled from there to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died in a hospital days later.
A World Health Organization investigation is underway to pinpoint the origin of this outbreak, with particular attention placed on a bird-watching trip in southern Argentina,<\/a> which the first passenger to die took part in before joining the cruise.
American and global health officials have stressed throughout the outbreak that the risk to the wider public is low and that transmission is limited to close contact.
All passengers and a \u201climited\u201d number of crewmembers had disembarked from the Hondius by Monday, and the ship, with 27 crewmembers remaining on board, is sailing to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Oceanwide Expeditions said. It is scheduled to arrive there May 17, it said.
A woman who was among five French passengers repatriated Sunday to Paris has tested positive for hantavirus, and her health worsened in the hospital overnight, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday.
One Spanish national who was on the cruise ship and disembarked Sunday has tested preliminarily positive, the Spanish Health Ministry said Monday. That person has no symptoms and is in good condition, it said.
The U.K. government said 20 British nationals, a German citizen who is a U.K. resident and a Japanese passenger were being kept in a hospital in northwest England for 72 hours and will be asked to isolate at home for 45 days. None are showing any symptoms.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said<\/a> that one person is being treated after testing positive and that the person\u2019s wife is self-isolating as a precaution. In addition, a Swiss crewmember is also in quarantine in the Netherlands, and another Swiss national is self-isolating in Switzerland.
Tests have confirmed that two of the three people who died had hantavirus. In the case of the first person who died onboard on April 11, no microbiological tests were performed, and his is considered a probable case, the WHO has said.
Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.
Rebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThe 18 Americans who were aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius arrived back in the U.S. on Monday, and two of them are in biocontainment units in Omaha, Nebraska, and Atlanta.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Those two Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}