By Ahmed Aboulenein and Michael Erman
WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – The risk from hantavirus to the general public remains very low, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 staff members actively working on the outbreak, an official with the government health agency said on Wednesday.
“To the American public, please know we are here to protect your health. Based on current information, the risk” to the general population remains low, Dr. David Fitter, the incident manager for the CDC’s hantavirus response, said during a media call.
The CDC is conducting public health assessments on site in Nebraska, where 16 of the 18 passengers from the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak were flown to and quarantined on Monday, said Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC team lead in Nebraska.
The group had been aboard the MV Hondius, a luxury expedition cruise ship linked to an outbreak of the Andes virus, the only hantavirus species known to be capable of limited person-to-person spread. Hantavirus is usually spread by wild rodents.
One passenger who officials on Monday said had tested positive for hantavirus and was placed in a Nebraska biocontainment unit was later medically cleared to move to quarantine with the others.
The passengers are currently being monitored for hantavirus at U.S. medical facilities, with 16 of them at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and two in Atlanta, including one who is experiencing symptoms, the officials said at a briefing.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Michael Erman in New York; Additional reporting by Christian Martinez in Los Angeles, Christy Santhosh and Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Franklin Paul, Paul Simao and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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