Health Care

US to send charter flight for Americans on hantavirus-stricken cruise ship

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by Nathaniel Weixel - 05/08/26 8:30 PM ET

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by Nathaniel Weixel - 05/08/26 8:30 PM ET

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The U.S. will send a charter flight to bring home the remaining 17 Americans who are onboard the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship once it docks off the coast of Spain this weekend.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has deployed a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands, where the ship is expected to dock.

The ship is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife in the early hours on Sunday, its operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said Friday.

Once the ship docks, the CDC team will conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American passenger and provide recommendations for the level of monitoring required, the agency said in a statement Friday.

The State Department is arranging the repatriation flight in coordination with the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services and the government of Spain, a State Department spokesperson said.

“We are in direct communication with Americans on board and are prepared to provide consular assistance as soon as the ship arrives in Tenerife, Spain,” the spokesperson said.

The U.S. charter flight will bring the passengers to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where they will be transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit, a federally funded quarantine facility.

A second CDC team will meet the passengers at Offutt to support the public health assessment of returning passengers, the CDC said.

According to Nebraska Medicine, the quarantine unit is designed specifically to “safely house and monitor people who may have been exposed to high-consequence infectious diseases.”

None of the Americans are showing symptoms of illness, the hospital said.

“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement. “Our teams have trained for decades alongside federal and state partners to make sure we can safely provide care while protecting our staff and the broader community. We are proud to support this national effort.”

Five states — Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia — are already monitoring seven passengers who previously disembarked from the ship. New Jersey on Friday said it was also monitoring two people who were potentially exposed to a person infected with hantavirus who previously disembarked from the ship.

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