US prepares quarantine measures for cruise passengers after hantavirus deaths

US health officials are intensifying efforts to contain a hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship as American passengers prepare to return to the US for quarantine monitoring, according to an American newspaper.

The ship is expected to dock Sunday in Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands, where US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) personnel have been deployed to assist 17 Americans on board, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The US State Department is arranging a repatriation flight, and passengers will later be transferred to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, it added.

The MV Hondius, carrying around 150 passengers and crew members from 23 countries, departed from Argentina and crossed the Atlantic before reporting a cluster of respiratory illnesses while sailing near Cape Verde off West Africa.

The CDC has classified the outbreak as a Level 3 emergency response, the agency's lowest emergency activation level.

The outbreak, involving the Andes strain of hantavirus, has resulted in five confirmed cases, including three deaths, according to World Health Organization (WHO) officials.

Scientists confirmed the outbreak was caused by the rare Andes variant of hantavirus, the only known strain capable of human-to-human transmission, usually through close contact.

The WHO said two passengers who later died had traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay before boarding the ship.

CDC officials said passengers will be monitored for about six weeks, reflecting the virus's incubation period, while health authorities in several US states are also tracking travelers who had already left the vessel before the outbreak was confirmed.