UNMC officials give updates on hantavirus quarantine

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Now, US citizens exposed to the Hanta virus are on a cruise ship and then they're coming to Omaha. The outbreak is linked to three deaths and five other infections. Americans exposed will get monitored in the national quarantine unit on the campus of Nebraska Medicine and UNMC. First Alert 6 Zena Taher joins us live from the Nebraska Medical Center campus. So, Zena, what do we know so far about how this handoff will work?

[00:00:31]Yeah, Aaron. So, like you mentioned, this campus is home to the national quarantine unit. So, it's the only federally funded quarantine unit in the US. And basically what that means is it's for quarantine. So, it's only for people who have been exposed to illness, not necessarily showing symptoms yet.

[00:00:49]So, it's perfect for this situation where all those people are coming off of the cruise ship and they need a place to be monitored for their health and safety. Now, this campus also does have an isolation unit where people can be kept and treated as if they do start to show symptoms. They may either stay here or if they have minor symptoms, they might be handed off to a more local facility that's closer to their home.

[00:01:14]But, this facility is designed not just to quarantine, it's also to care for patients who might have that kind of high-risk infectious disease. The staff here did make it clear today, there aren't direct parallels between Hanta virus and COVID.

[00:01:31]This is a virus that has been around for a while in Argentina and Chile. And so, you know, we have not seen sustained human-to-human transmission with Hanta virus as we saw with COVID-19. So, I think again two very different viruses, two very different risk profiles.

[00:01:46]I do not see this as progressing to a worldwide pandemic, although there's still a lot of unknowns and I think we all need to recognize that. But, two extremely different viruses with a different transmission pattern.

[00:02:01]So, the quarantine unit is staffed by an all-volunteer team of more than 100 health professionals over here, and they train quarterly for situations like this one. So, Nebraska Med and UNMC officials say that all in all, they're very prepared. We'll be back at 6:00 with more details, but for now, send it back to you.

[00:02:20]Like you said, Zena, it's the exact facility for this type of situation.

[00:02:24]Thank you.

[00:02:25]Well, health officials in at least a dozen countries are tracking passengers who have traveled aboard the cruise ship at the center of this outbreak.

[00:02:33]They are all set to go to the Canary Islands, and from there, the Americans will head here to Omaha. The US passengers who are on or were on board or from five different states, all on either the west or east coasts.

[00:02:47]Now, of course, this is not the first time that Omaha has found itself at the center of an infectious disease outbreak. In 2014, two Ebola patients were taken to Nebraska Medicine for treatment. The special unit there is one of only four in the country capable of taking patients who could start devastating epidemics. Another person possibly exposed to Ebola came to the med center in 2019. And then in 2020, 13 Americans exposed to COVID-19 on a cruise ship were taken to Nebraska Medicine at the start of the pandemic.