Omaha, Neb. — Seventeen Americans and a British citizen evacuated from the cruise ship hit with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus arrived in the U.S. early Monday.
One American on the repatriation flight began showing symptoms of hantavirus and another “tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus,” the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday night.
Both passengers were “travelling in the plane’s biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution,” HHS said. The passenger who tested positive was not experiencing symptoms, according to a statement from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
The flight landed at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, and a convoy, ambulance and multiple buses arrived early Monday at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts says the passengers will be well taken care of…
“We’ve dealt with Ebola, we’ve dealt with Covid, we evacuated the people from the Diamond Princess and we will do a great job of taking care of these folks…the people who we have taken care of in the
past have had rave reviews about the quality of the facilities.”
Officials have repeatedly stressed the outbreak will not lead to another pandemic like in 2020.
