Possible hantavirus case in Illinois not tied to ship outbreak under investigation, IDPH says

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]important things to know here. First of all, it's a potential case and Tia, no, this is not connected to that outbreak on the cruise ship. The Illinois Department of Public Health just released this info today in a statement.

[00:00:11]They think that the person may have gotten the virus while cleaning a home that had rodent droppings. The Department of Public Health says this person lives in Winnebago County. They haven't traveled internationally and they haven't been by anyone associated with the cruise ship. But this person did have some mild symptoms. IDPH is working right now with the CDC for more testing to confirm whether this case is positive. It may be a bit though before we find out because this can take up to 10 days. The Department of Public Health says it looks like this person got a North American strain of the virus. So the difference between this strain and the strain from the cruise outbreak is that this strain is not known to spread from person-to-person. The Department of Public Health says the chances of getting hantavirus of any kind is still very low for people who live in Illinois. I did reach out to IDPH for an interview. They just told me that they can't do that right now. But coming up at 5:00, we're going to have a little bit more about the history of hantavirus in Illinois. I'll tell you this, the state can count the number of cases it's seen since the '90s on two hands, Tia.