Sixteen more people in US under hantavirus monitoring, says CDC
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The new people were passengers on a flight to Johannesburg and had been exposed to someone known to have been infected.
PHOTO: AFP
Apoorva Mandavilli
WASHINGTON – US health officials are monitoring 16 additional people across the country for symptoms of hantavirus, whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had not previously mentioned, the agency said on May 14.
The newly identified individuals were not on the Dutch cruise ship but were passengers on an April 25 flight to Johannesburg and were exposed to someone known to have been infected, said Dr David Fitter, who is leading the CDC’s response to the outbreak.
The new total of those being monitored in the US is now 41, a significant increase over the 18 passengers from the cruise ship who were brought back to the country on May 11. They are quarantining at special facilities in Omaha, Nebraska and Atlanta.
Seven other passengers from the cruise ship had disembarked on April 24 in St Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Those passengers returned to the US on commercial flights and are being monitored by state health departments.
As at May 14, there were no confirmed cases in the US, Dr Fitter said.
The infected passenger was a 69-year-old Dutch woman whose husband was the first person to die in the outbreak on April 11.
She was among those who disembarked from the ship on April 24. The next day, she flew from St Helena to Johannesburg. She collapsed shortly after arrival and died on April 26. She was confirmed on May 4 to have had hantavirus.
CDC officials would not give any other information about the 16 passengers, including where they had gone after arriving in the US.
It was not clear whether all Americans exposed to the virus are now back in the country, or if additional people are being monitored abroad.
“Our job is to ensure that we are monitoring and in contact with anybody that might have been on the flight this person had taken,” Dr Fitter told reporters. The agency is “monitoring all Americans who potentially would have been exposed, whether in the US or abroad, and we have been in contact with them”.
In an interview on May 10 with CNN, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, the CDC’s acting director, said none of the seven passengers who returned to the US earlier showed symptoms at the time of travel, so officials had not seen a need to alert the public or trace contacts.
For now, quarantine is essentially voluntary. Officials are encouraging those who were exposed to the virus to “stay at home and avoid being around people during their 42-day monitoring period”, Dr Fitter said. NYTIMES
