Health officials monitoring several people in US for hantavirus following outbreak on ship

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (WTOC/Gray News) – U.S. health officials say they are monitoring several people who were aboard the MV Hondius, a ship that experienced an outbreak of hantavirus while traveling in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, it is monitoring two people who recently returned home from the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak.

“The individuals are currently in good health and show no signs of infection,” a Georgia Department of Public Health spokesperson said.

The two residents are following CDC recommendations and procedures.

The department declined to confirm how the two people who were on the cruise are being monitored or whether there is a public health threat.

Now-deleted social media posts from one of the women detail her time on the ship, including that she knew two people who died of hantavirus.

A source close to her family confirmed she was on the ship.

WTOC reached the woman by phone. She declined to comment on the situation or to confirm that she was being monitored for hantavirus.

Photos on the woman’s social media showed her time on the cruise.

Health officials in Virginia, Texas and Arizona also reported they are monitoring passengers who were on the affected cruise ship.

“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” Maria Van Kerkhove, with the World Health Organization, said.

Oceanwide Expeditions revealed that 30 passengers disembarked from one of its cruise ships hit by a hantavirus outbreak on April 24.

They left the vessel on the remote island of St. Helena, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died.

Three passengers have died in the outbreak, and several others are sick.

Experts say the risk to the wider public is considered low because hantavirus isn’t easily transmitted between people.

“Most people will never be exposed to this,” Van Kerkhove added.