The State Department spent three-quarters of a million dollars to sail an American citizen who was exposed to hantavirus off a remote British island in the South Pacific.The woman was exposed to hantavirus in April while aboard the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, according to two government officials and a government document obtained by the Associated Press. The hefty expenditure on her evacuation further strains the State Department’s emergency budget, which has already been taxed by the war with Iran and the recent Ebola outbreak.Ocean Expedition’s MV Hondius left Patagonia with roughly 150 passengers on April 1. The ship made stops in Antarctica and the South Atlantic before arriving in Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa.
The woman, whom the officials did not name to comply with medical privacy law, disembarked the MV Hondius and eventually traveled to Pitcairn Island through San Francisco and Fiji. It is unclear why she traveled from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific.
A local government spokesperson told the BBC last month that the person “had contact with a hantavirus-exposed individual” but was “showing no signs of illness.” Three people have died as a result of the cruise ship outbreak.
