An American doctor who helped care for sick passengers while travelling on a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak has been cleared to leave a high-security hospital room where he was isolated after an unclear test result.
Stephen Kornfeld was among more than 120 passengers and crew evacuated from the ship and flown to several countries for quarantine.
He was one of the 16 Americans taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in the United States, after a nasal swab taken on board returned unclear results for the virus.
He was placed in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, a sealed hospital area used to safely monitor or treat “patients with highly hazardous communicable diseases,” according to the facility.
On Wednesday, spokesperson Kayla Thomas said that Kornfeld would now join 15 other Americans being monitored at the National Quarantine Unit rather than remain in the isolation facility.
