The CDC has ordered two passengers formerly on the M/V Hondius cruise ship to remain at a Nebraska quarantine unit with 16 other passengers, who are being monitored for Andes hantavirus.
Following an Andes hantavirus outbreak first reported on an international cruise ship, 18 Americans are under quarantine at a Nebraska facility. Symptoms can take 42 days to present after the last possible exposure.
The quarantine orders were issued under the Public Health Service Act, the CDC said in a May 19 news release. “Quarantine is a public health measure, available at the federal, state, and county level, and used as necessary to protect communities,” the agency said.
A former passenger on the M/V Hondius cruise ship planned to self-isolate in Florida before the CDC ordered her to stay at a Nebraska quarantine unit, The New York Times reported May 18.
The passenger, Angela Perryman, 47, shared the federal order with the Times. The order mandates Ms. Perryman remain at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit in Omaha through May 31.
Ms. Perryman told the Times she tested negative for the hantavirus and is not experiencing symptoms, but she reported having brief conversations with one of the three passengers who later died from hantavirus. She also said federal officials instructed the 18 passengers they would receive a mandatory quarantine order if they do not stay at the unit voluntarily.
Becker’s spoke with Matthew Sims, MD, PhD, director of infectious disease research at Grand Rapids and Southfield, Mich.-based Corewell Health and medical director of research at Corewell Health East, on May 20. He said situations such as Ms. Perryman’s are rare but not uncommon, and neither are mandatory quarantine orders.
“There are laws on the books about forced quarantine; it’s got to be in the public health’s interest,” Dr. Sims said. “This happens with tuberculosis sometimes. People [with] active tuberculosis can be restricted in order to protect people around them.”
Dr. Sims recalled similar pushback from a patient who returned to the U.S. after working in Africa during the largest Ebola disease outbreak to date, which hit West Africa from 2014 to 2016. An Ebola outbreak is unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On May 20, a World Health Organization adviser reported 600 suspected cases of Ebola and 139 suspected deaths related to the Ebola outbreak.
The Andes hantavirus outbreak is much smaller, with nine confirmed infections, two suspected infections and three deaths.
No infections related to the hantavirus or Ebola outbreaks have been reported in the U.S.
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