A total of 11 hantavirus cases have been confirmed as of Tuesday morning, with global health officials warning that the number could rise, as one American who was on the deadly cruise ship revealed new details from his quarantine room.
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Jake Rosmarin, one of the American passengers currently quarantined in Omaha, Nebraska, spoke to NBC News from his room at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He and 15 other Americans will remain quarantined in the National Quarantine Center in Nebraska for a few days after returning home from the MV Hondius on Monday.
Two other Americans who returned from the voyage are stationed at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I’m happy to be in a place where I know we are well-cared for and if anything happens, we have the medical attention that we need,” Rosmarin said on “TODAY,” adding that he has no symptoms and has not tested positive for the virus.
Since the 18 Americans arrived stateside, two of those ship passengers are in biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. One is at the UNMC and the other is at Emory.
Since the Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 with almost 150 on board on a nature-sightseeing mission via some of the world’s most remote points, there have been nine confirmed cases of the deadly hantavirus, in addition to two suspected cases that have not been confirmed by lab results.
Rosmarin said finding out about the hantavirus outbreak “was a really scary moment for me personally,” especially after some Googling yielded frightening results. But further research led him to realize that hantavirus is well known, which somewhat calmed his nerves.
Three people have died in the outbreak — a Dutch couple and one German national.
The body of the first Dutch person to die was taken off the ship as it stopped at the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena. The passenger’s wife traveled from there to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died in a hospital days later.
Rosmarin said he stayed in his cabin as much as possible while he was still on the ship, but “it wasn’t really until we arrived in the Canary Islands and I was able to get off the ship that I felt a bit of relief,” he said.
The luxury cruise ship arrived early Sunday at the island of Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands off West Africa, where passengers started repatriating to their home countries. Passengers received health screenings upon arrival in Spain, the country’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
Officials in the U.S. said those who have not tested positive for hantavirus and are not exhibiting symptoms will remain under medical supervision for a few days. After that, they can self-isolate at home.
Given hantavirus’s long incubation period of 42 days, “we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom-Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization.
In Spain and France, officials have said that everyone who has been exposed to the deadly virus must quarantine for the full incubation period.
Exposed patients in the U.S. have the option to remain in quarantine as well for the full 42 days, said Angela Hewlitt, medical director of the Nebraska biocontainment unit. She added that she would encourage patients to do so.
Some U.S. patients who left the cruise earlier are being monitored, as are those who may have been in close contact with them in multiple states.
Officials have maintained that the public health system is working exactly as intended.
“Let me be crystal clear: the risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low. The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic,” said Dr. Brian Christine, DHS’s assistant secretary for health.
The World Health Organization is investigating and trying to pinpoint the origin of this outbreak. There is particular attention on a bird-watching trip in southern Argentina, which the first passenger to die took part in before joining the cruise.
American and global health officials have stressed throughout the outbreak that the risk to the wider public is low and that transmission is limited to close contact.
Positive tests have shown up in France, Spain and Switzerland, and nations around the world are closely monitoring those patients, as well as the others who were on the Hondius.
All of the ship’s passengers and a “limited” number of its crewmembers had disembarked by the end of the day Monday. The remaining 27 crewmembers are sailing to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Oceanwide Expeditions said. It is scheduled to arrive there on May 17.
This isn’t the first hantavirus outbreak in recent history.
One documented “superspreader” outbreak occurred in Argentina in 2018. Thirty-four people were sickened after several people with hantavirus attended a variety of social events, including a birthday party. Eleven people died.
Despite that, Dr. Brendan Jackson, acting director of the high-consequence pathogens and pathology division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged that there’s a lot more to learn about hantavirus.
“It’s important to remember that we’re very early in this outbreak,” he told NBC News. “The risk to the public is very, very low at this time, but that doesn’t mean we’re letting our guard down.”