The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to formally end its hantavirus response on June 24, nearly two months after an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic killed three people and infected several others.
“Protecting Americans is our highest responsibility. CDC’s hantavirus response officially concludes June 24, 2026,” acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The decision comes days after a 42-day quarantine for American passengers exposed to the rare Andes strain of hantavirus ended Sunday at a specialised facility in Nebraska.
More than a dozen Americans were initially housed at the facility, though some were released earlier this month after their home states agreed to continue monitoring them. Eight remained in Nebraska until the end of the quarantine period, including one passenger who alleged she was being held there against her will.
The CDC said throughout the outbreak that the risk to the wider U.S. public remained low. However, officials noted that the Andes strain — found mainly in Chile and Argentina — is unusual because it can spread between humans, unlike most hantaviruses, and can cause severe and often fatal lung disease.
White House officials said those risks, together with the virus’s long incubation period, justified the full quarantine, despite criticism from some public health experts who said the measure was unnecessary because nearly all quarantined passengers remained asymptomatic.
The outbreak began after the MV Hondius left the Argentine city of Ushuaia on April 1 bound for the Canary Islands. Eight people on board tested positive for hantavirus, and three died. About 150 people were on the ship, most of them from the United States, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands.
By Sabina Mammadli
