No visits. No intermingling. Staff with protective gear.
This is the reality at the Nebraska-based National Quarantine Unit for more than a dozen Americans who were on the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak and arrived back in the United States early Monday.
Patients can call and video-conference with family and friends, access exercise equipment and watch large TVs, officials said. The rooms’ ventilation system is designed so that the virus cannot leave the room, and it is separated from the rest of the building with HEPA air filters.
U.S. officials on Monday laid out more details on how 18 passengers from the Hondius are quarantining after returning to the U.S. In Nebraska, there are 16 people: 15 are in the quarantine unit and another, the first American who tested positive for hantavirus while abroad, is in the biocontainment unit. An additional two passengers were sent to an Atlanta biocontainment facility because one of them was showing symptoms, officials said.
“Quarantine is sort of like a very well-managed, air-handled hotel room, and the biocontainment unit is like a very well-managed, air-handled intensive care unit,” said Jeffrey P. Gold, president of the University of Nebraska, where the patients are being housed. The National Quarantine Unit is a federally funded facility that has previously received patients with Ebola and covid-19.
The American passengers, who were originally on a polar-rated expedition ship that set off from Argentina on April 1, range from their late 20s to late 70s. Officials say the quarantined passengers are doing well, though tired after they were evacuated from the ship off the coast of Tenerife, Spain, as part of a coordinated global repatriation and monitoring mission.
Since there are no therapeutic options to treat hantavirus, early intervention and care is vital, officials said. Three passengers from the cruise ship previously have died.
Passengers who have returned are being monitored for symptoms including fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches, respiratory issues and dizziness.
Although the quarantine is 42 days, officials said, some patients may be escorted to complete monitoring at home, depending on their conditions.
“No one who poses a risk to public health is walking out the front door,” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said.
Two passengers were sent to a biocontainment unit at Emory University in Atlanta to be evaluated. Authorities identified the passengers as a couple and said one was symptomatic.
Officials said some passengers were sent to Atlanta because they want to maintain space in Nebraska’s Biocontainment Unit in case quarantined passengers test positive for hantavirus. The specialized part of the Nebraska facility can house two to three seriously ill patients, an official said.
On Monday, French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist told the France Inter radio broadcaster that a French passenger who had started to exhibit symptoms on the flight back to France had deteriorated overnight and tested positive for hantavirus.
A team of six paratroopers and two military clinicians parachuted into the British overseas island territory of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic to deliver medical support for a British national who was unwell with suspected hantavirus, the British government said.
“The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very very low,” said Adm. Brian Christine, U.S. assistant secretary for health. In six states, authorities are monitoring seven previously returned passengers and two others that may have been exposed to the virus.
Global health authorities have continued to stress that this is not the next pandemic.
Questions still are swirling on how much contact is required to spread the virus. Officials said in the news conference Monday that it typically it requires prolonged contact. However, they said the situation is evolving. Exposure occurred on a cruise ship, which by nature leaves people in closer quarters.
The federal response is happening while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have a confirmed permanent director. President Donald Trump picked Erica Schwartz to lead the agency in April after a period of turmoil at the CDC, but she is not confirmed. Federal, state and local officials have stressed they have engaged in a coordinated response.
Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
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