The US hantavirus cruise passengers may soon go home ahead of the 42-day symptom period. Here’s why

American passengers quarantining after exposure to a deadly outbreak of hantavirus on a Dutch cruise ship could soon be able to go home.

There have been 13 cases linked to the rare rodent-borne illness since the outbreak was first reported, including three deaths. None of the deceased were from the U.S.

The U.S. also has no confirmed cases and an American who reported experiencing symptoms has since tested negative. So has another passenger who initially tested “faintly” positive.

It may take as long as 42 days for symptoms of hantavirus to show following exposure and the passengers only arrived at facilities in Nebraska and Georgia a little over two weeks ago.

So, why have American health officials aid they may only hold passengers through the end of the month? Most people who do fall ill do so within a critical period of 21 days, the Southern Nevada Health District says.

“With regards to those that are in Nebraska, a decision was made across the leadership in the U.S. government to have the passengers stay in Nebraska until May 31, which marks the 21st day of their monitoring period,” Dr. David Fitter, the incident manager for response to the virus at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a May 19 news briefing.

Still, quarantine time also depends on a person’s individual case and officials could decide to keep passengers in place for the full 42 days.

“A blanket statement as far as duration would be difficult to make,” Dr. Michael Wadman, the medical director of Nebraska’s national quarantine unit, told reporters last week.

Several passengers say they have been displeased with health officials’ response and want to be allowed to quarantine from home.

“I’m held here involuntarily, so in that sense it’s a prison term, I mean, it’s a perfectly nice prison, but I’m still here involuntarily,” an anonymous passenger, a 30-year-old New York man, told NBC News last week. He has reportedly received quarantine orders from the CDC.

So has 47-year-old Angela Perryman.

“They are requiring us to remain in a locked facility and threatening us,” she told The New York Times earlier this month, “and denying us the right to home quarantine.”

A newly-suggested requirement that a monitor wait outside the passengers’ homes for the remaining three weeks of quarantine has also become an issue, CNN reported Friday, citing two anonymous passengers.

New York has allegedly declined to allow passengers back under those conditions, although discussions are ongoing.

The Independent’s requests for comment from the state’s health department and the office of Governor Kathy Hochul were not immediately returned.

The strain of virus that spread on the ship is the Andes virus, the only known hantavirus strain to pass between humans. Early symptoms are flu-like, but can lead to trouble breathing and fluid in the lungs.

Hantavirus is typically detected through direct exposure to infected rodents in the Southwest, but new research from Washington State University shows a “high prevalence” in the Pacific Northwest, as well.

Right now, the risk of hantavirus spread in the U.S. remains extremely low, the CDC says, and the World Health Organization’s top leader says that the situation is “stable for now.”

“All passengers and crew remain in quarantine and under close monitoring to ensure they receive care if needed,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote Sunday in a post on the social media platform X.