US to fly Americans home from hantavirus-hit cruise ship on charter medical flight

The United States is coordinating a government-chartered medical flight to repatriate the remaining American passengers from the hantavirus-linked cruise ship MV Hondius. The CDC has activated Level 3 emergency operations; 17 Americans onboard will be evacuated to an air force base in Omaha for quarantine at the University of Nebraska facility, with multiple states monitoring for possible infections. WHO says the outbreak is unlikely to become a pandemic and the public risk remains low.