Five of the 18 American cruise ship passengers who have been staying at a national quarantine facility in Nebraska after being exposed to hantavirus are going home, US health officials said Monday. The five people will complete their monitoring at home after remaining symptom-free and meeting criteria for monitoring outside the quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the AP reports. They are leaving Omaha about three weeks after they and the 13 other Americans arrived in Nebraska following a deadly outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship traveling in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, but the hantavirus that has caused the current outbreak, called the Andes virus, may be able to spread between people in rare cases. A total of 13 confirmed or probable hantavirus cases, including three deaths, have been linked to the ship, according to the World Health Organization. No Andes virus cases have been confirmed in the US, and the risk to the public remains low, health officials said. None of the U.S. passengers has shown any symptoms, a spokesperson for Nebraska Medicine said Monday. Symptoms of hantavirus have taken as long as 42 days to appear in previous outbreaks, but some medical experts say most people who develop symptoms do so within 21 days.
The doctors in Omaha monitoring the passengers had said they would work with each person to determine if it was appropriate for them to go home to finish their recommended 42-day quarantine period. One of the remaining passengers, Jake Rosmarin, told ABC News that he plans to stay in Nebraska for the full 42 days. "I have been traumatized by this whole experience. I'm afraid to leave this room until I know that the chance of me getting sick is 0%," Rosmarin said. "I want to know when I leave that the chances of me risking other people, my family, friends, the general public."
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