A U.S. cruise ship passenger who showed symptoms of the hantavirus has tested negative, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on May 12.
The unidentified American who was onboard the stricken ship tested negative on Monday night, the department said in a brief statement.
The person is in quarantine in a biocontainment unit at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
The condition of their partner, who is also in the unit, is not clear.
The couple was on the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged cruise ship that departed from Argentina on April 1 and sailed to remote destinations like Antarctica.
There have been nine confirmed hantavirus cases among people who were on board, along with two suspected cases, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. Three people have died.
Sixteen additional Americans who were on the cruise ship were flown to a medical facility in Omaha, Nebraska. One tested positive for hantavirus and was placed in a biocontainment unit even though they had not shown symptoms, officials said at a briefing on Monday. The 15 others were in quarantine at the facility because they have neither tested positive nor displayed symptoms.
All 16 of them “currently remain asymptomatic,” the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Jake Rosmarin, who is at the Omaha facility, gave a glimpse of his accommodations in a video on TikTok. “The room is very spacious and comfortable,” Rosmarin said. “I can have stuff sent here for the duration of my stay, so I’m definitely going to be getting some things for me to feel more at home and more comfortable.”
Sequencing from hantavirus patients has returned showing they contracted the Andes variant of the virus, with officials saying they believe some patients were sickened by others. Hantavirus typically comes from infected rodents.
Scott Pegan, a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of California Riverside, told The Epoch Times in an email that while hantaviruses are serious pathogens that can lead to fatal outcomes, the transmissibility of the virus among people is low.
“Given the information available to date, this Andes virus outbreak is following the same trends of previous outbreaks and the virus has shown no signs of evolving to increase its relatively low human-human transmission capabilities,” Pegan, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and biochemistry, said.
The Americans in quarantine may be allowed to leave the facilities in Nebraska and Georgia after several days, based on factors such as remaining symptom-free, according to federal authorities.
Other Americans who disembarked earlier from the Hondius are in contact with local and state departments and have been told to alert them if they develop symptoms within the virus incubation period, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said on Monday.
The health department in Seattle and King County, Washington state, said in a May 12 statement that two county residents were seated on an airplane near an ill passenger from the cruise ship. The passenger was removed prior to takeoff and later tested positive, the department said. Both the residents have returned home, are asymptomatic, and are keeping an eye out for symptoms.
Authorities in California and Maryland also said residents of their states had been exposed to a cruise ship passenger who had hantavirus.