ATLANTA — The Georgia Department of Public Health confirmed two passengers from M/V Hondius cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak are now in Atlanta.
The two patients, who are a couple, have been taken to Emory University Hospital.
“One symptomatic individual is receiving care in Emory’s biocontainment unit, and one asymptomatic individual—identified as a close contact—is undergoing evaluation and monitoring," Emory officials said in a statement to Channel 2 Action News.
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Channel 2’s Richard Elliot confirmed with DPH officials that the couple is not from Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp told Elliot that the state is ready to help though in whatever way it can.
“There is nobody better to handle that than the folks at Emory. You think of how they dealt with folks who had Ebola that had been transported back here,” Kemp told Elliot.
“We’re going to do the right thing. We’re going to help get these people back, get them in the right environment that doesn’t put our fellow Georgians in jeopardy,” the governor added.
Kemp said he also received calls from the White House.
“I know it’s something the White House and Trump administration has also asked that these individuals come to Atlanta because they have that much confidence in us.”
Emory University Hospital says it is one of only four locations in the U.S. that has a special bio-containment units built to monitor diseases like hantavirus.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center is another and that is where the other 16 American passengers from the cruise ship are being monitored.
“This is a system that exists for exactly this kind of scenario. And what you are seeing is the system working. The system kind of will absorb passengers as needed,” Matthew Ferreira with the Department of Health and Human Services said at a news conference in Nebraska. “And this is a very well rehearsed system that exists, and what you are seeing is that system work exactly as intended.”
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