U.S. monitoring hantavirus cruise passengers, some of whom returned to California

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Also tonight, the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship half a world away is sparking concern here in the US as global health officials focus now on containing the spread. That outbreak is already responsible for three deaths.

[00:00:14]Health officials in California and four other states are monitoring passengers who were on board the cruise ship, which is now on its way to the Canary Islands.

[00:00:21]NBC 4's Robert Kovac is here now with today's developments for us. Robert.

[00:00:25]>> Carolyn, the concern is certainly understandable. We are talking about passengers from the cruise ship who disembarked before it was known there was a deadly virus on board and they have since dispersed around the world, including some to California. Don't have a specific number of people or their exact location. However, the World Health Organization says the outbreak is not the start of COVID part two and that is being echoed tonight nationally and here locally.

[00:00:55]Should you be worried? Here we go again.

[00:00:57]This is not another pandemic.

[00:01:00]>> As tonight, confirmation from five states that passengers who were aboard that cruise ship with the deadly hantavirus outbreak are back in the US.

[00:01:08]One person in Virginia, two in Georgia, two in Texas, another in Arizona, and an undisclosed number of people right here in California. Health departments in all of those states telling NBC News that the former passengers, whose identities are being withheld, are not showing any symptoms. However, a warning tonight, they should be isolating. At least for the duration of the six weeks since a known exposure. That's according to a Johns Hopkins microbiologist that says that's how long it could take for symptoms to show up. Symptoms, according to Dr. Ali Jaber at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach, that feel like you're getting the flu. Malaise, headache, nausea, fatigue, body aches, um and so those are the first symptoms that really kind of come up come along and they very quickly can then develop into shortness of breath.

[00:02:00]>> Hantavirus is the same disease that killed Betsy Aoki Kawa, the wife of late actor Gene Hackman last year. This confirmed Andy strain usually transmitted through rodents, in rare cases human-to-human transmission, but there must be a high level of virus and very close contact.

[00:02:17]>> This requires intimate contact, like sharing a bed, like sharing utensils. Right now, a global race to stop the virus from spreading beyond that cruise ship. Dutch authorities announcing that a flight attendant has been hospitalized with possible symptoms. She was on the same flight as one of the cruise ship passengers with hantavirus. That patient removed before takeoff and later died, according to Dutch media. What's unknown, the extent of the interaction between that flight attendant and that passenger. Unlike COVID, though, hantavirus is not readily transmissible.

[00:02:52]The spread of that is not nowhere near where coronavirus was. And so, wearing masks and doing those kind of things where you're in Los Angeles or other cities is definitely overkill, for sure.

[00:03:04]But, just general hand hygiene and uh, you know, being safe in that sense is the most important thing.

[00:03:11]Now, as for this cruise ship, medical teams are on board with the passengers, and that includes at least 17 Americans.

[00:03:18]The CDC and the State Department monitoring the status of those passengers, and adding, and I'm quoting here, that the risk to the American public is extremely low.

[00:03:30]I'm Robert Kovac. Carolyn? Yeah, good to know, Robert.