A U.S. citizen who was a passenger aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive for the virus, the Department of Health and Human Services reported on Sunday night. The positive test result came as HHS announced that 17 U.S. citizens were being airlifted back to the United States after the ship docked in the Canary Islands.

HHS reported that another passenger was showing symptoms of the virus. Both passengers are traveling in a plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” HHS said in a social media post.

“One passenger currently has mild symptoms and another passenger tested mildly PCR positive for the Andes virus,” read a HHS post on X about the 17 Americans being transported back to the U.S.

“As of now, the airlift will transport passengers to the ASPR Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska before taking the passenger with mild symptoms to a second RESPTC at its final destination,” said HHS.

“Upon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition.”

The hantavirus is a “severe and deadly disease that affects the lungs,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It causes a respiratory illness in humans called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. The virus spreads through contact with the urine, feces, or saliva of rodents, such as mice or rats. The primary concern for humans is the Andes strain, which is believed to be the only strain capable of being spread through human contact.

PASSENGERS DISEMBARK HANTAVIRUS-PLAGUED CRUISE SHIP OFF SPAIN’S CANARY ISLANDS

Sunday’s revelation of the U.S. citizen testing positive for the virus, and a second showing symptoms, are the first known cases of U.S. citizens on the ship having contracted the virus. Previously, seven Americans aboard the ship had already returned to the country, with none exhibiting symptoms or testing positive for the virus, the Washington Examiner previously reported. Eight people aboard the cruise ship have been diagnosed with the virus, with three people dying from it so far.

Despite the recent developments of symptomatic U.S. citizens, the public health risk of the disease becoming widespread and evolving into a pandemic is considered low, according to health experts. 

Director of the National Institutes of Health and acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya said in an interview on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper that the hantavirus outbreak will not be another COVID-19 pandemic. He said the CDC is fully equipped to handle hantavirus and is taking the proper and necessary precautions.

“This is not Covid, Jake,” said Bhattacharya to Tapper. “And we don’t want to treat it like Covid. We don’t want to cause a public panic over this. We want to treat it with hantavirus protocols that, again, were successful in containing outbreaks in the past.”