The 17 Americans still stranded aboard the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius cruise ship are set to be evacuated to a quarantine center in Nebraska in the coming days, the CDC said Sunday – but not until after the 13 Spanish nationals aboard disembark.

The MV Hondius docked in Tenerife Sunday to begin the weeklong evacuation process for the ship’s 147 passengers – who hail from a dozen countries and are being taken off the boat in groups by nationality.

The American passengers are next up, and will be taken on a US government medical repatriation flight to the National Quarantine Unit, overseen by Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center for further evaluation and quarantine.

The MV Hondius cruise ship docked in the port of Granadilla de Abona, Tenerife, with smaller boats nearby.

The MV Hondius arriving at the port of Granadilla de Abona on Tenerife in the Canary Islands on May 10, 2026.

People from the cruise ship MV Hondius affected by a hantavirus outbreak are transferred by boat to the port after disembarking, at the port of Granadilla de Abona.

Passengers getting evacuated from the MV Hondius after arriving.

Passengers wearing protective suits board a military bus.

Passengers wearing a blue protective suits board a military bus after being evacuated from the Dutch flagged hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the industrial port of Granadilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10, 2026.

The facility, the only federally-funded quarantine unit in the country, offers 20 single-occupancy rooms, each with their own private bathrooms, and are equipped with negative air pressure systems to ensure the safety of those potentially infected by infectious diseases.

“Unit personnel consists of a voluntary staff of select physicians, nursing, nursing assistants and respiratory therapists specially trained in high-level isolation and bio preparedness,” Nebraska Medicine and UNMC said on its website.

Rooms are outfitted with exercise equipment and even WiFi connectivity for patients requiring extended stays.

A passenger wearing a mask and protective gear waves from inside a bus after disembarking from a cruise ship.

A passenger seen waving from the bus after getting off the hantavirus-stricken ship.

People in protective gear boarding a black passenger plane at Tenerife Sur-Reina Sofia airport.

Some of the passengers boarding a plane bound for the Netherlands.
AFP via Getty Images
The CDC will also deploy a team to Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska to “support public health assessment of returning passengers,” the agency told ABC News.

The World Health Organization has recommended a 42-day isolation period for the passengers of the ill-fated vessel, which departed from Ushuaia, Argentina on April 1.

Although the American passengers’ first stop will be the quarantine facility, health officials are allowing them to check themselves out and go home — so long as they submit to six weeks of additional monitoring.

Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya downplayed fears that the isolated outbreak would result in a COVID-19-like pandemic on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning.

“I don’t want to cause a public panic,” Bhattacharya told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We want to treat it with our hantavirus protocols that were successful at containing outbreaks in the past.”

“The key message I want to send to your audience is that this is not COVID. This is not going to lead to the [same] kind of outbreak,” he added.

“We shouldn’t be panicking when the evidence doesn’t warrant it.”

At least three passengers aboard the Hondius have died and five others became seriously ill with hantavirus, which has an alarming 38% fatality rate.