Healthcare workers receive training on administering the Ebola vaccine in a study carried out with the support of the World Health Organization as part of the fight against the Ebola virus in Kampala, Uganda on February 14, 2025. (Photo by Nicholas Kajoba/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Sunday that a “small number of Americans” are directly affected by an Ebola outbreak occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The CDC is working with other U.S. agencies to coordinate the safe withdrawal of the Americans,” the CDC said in its statement. The agency did not confirm the number of people affected, the type of exposure or whether any individuals had experienced symptoms.
“We don’t discuss or comment on individual dispositions,” Dr. Satish Pillai, the CDC’s incident manager for Ebola, said during a press briefing on Sunday. “It is a highly dynamic situation, and at this point, what I would say is, we continue to assess, we will continue to keep you posted as we learn more.”
On Saturday, the World Health Organization said in a statement that the ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda constituted a “public health emergency of international concern.”
As of Sunday, the CDC said there were 10 confirmed Ebola cases and 336 suspected cases in the DRC. There had been 88 suspected deaths in the DRC, as well as two confirmed cases and one confirmed death in Uganda from people who had traveled to the DRC.
The CDC said that the risk to the American public remains low. Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person and does not spread through casual contact or air.
“CDC has extensive experience and expertise in responding to Ebola outbreaks,” CDC acting Director Jay Bhattacharya said on a call with reporters on Friday. “It is a large outbreak, and we were just informed yesterday about it.”
He added, “We’re absolutely committed to making sure that they can get resources as they need. We have helped with other Ebola outbreaks in the past … We have lots of hard-earned lessons. The key thing here is to know that we are absolutely involved.”
It is the DRC’s 17th outbreak of Ebola since the disease emerged in the 1970s, according to the WHO.
This strain of Ebola is caused by Bundibugyo virus, for which there are no therapeutics or vaccines, the WHO said.
The WHO has declared international public health emergencies over previous Ebola outbreaks as well as COVID-19 and mpox.
This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry)
(NEW YORK) — Members of the House Oversight Committee on Monday are set to interview a former prison guard who was on duty at the Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York when convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019.
The interview of Tova Noel — believed to be the last person to have seen Epstein before his death — comes amid renewed scrutiny of Epstein’s death.
Epstein died by suicide according to an autopsy conducted by the New York medical examiner, though a series of missteps by prison officials have long fueled conspiracy theories about his death.
Noel is alleged to have spent the hours ahead of Epstein’s death scrolling the internet, rather than performing the required headcounts of the prisoners in the unit where the disgraced sex offender was housed. Prosecutors in 2019 charged Noel and another prison guard with falsifying records to make it seem as if they did the required checks, and both ended up reaching a deal with prosecutors to have the charges dropped.
The recent release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice has brought renewed attention to Noel’s actions, and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said she was called to testify because some lawmakers “aren’t confident 100% that Epstein’s death was by suicide.”
“No one’s accusing her of any wrongdoing, but we have a lot of questions about Epstein,” Comer told Fox News in March.
Lawmakers have highlighted that Noel received a series of cash deposits between April 2018 and July 2019 totaling $12,000 — with most taking place before Epstein was arrested — and that the last deposit was made prior to Epstein’s death. Documents released by the DOJ also show that Noel made a series of internet searches about Epstein the night he died, including “latest on Epstein in jail.”
While those documents have attracted public attention, investigators appear to have already probed those matters. Grand jury transcripts released from the case against Noel released by the DOJ earlier this year showed that the FBI examined her bank records and found no evidence of a bribe.
She also told the DOJ inspector general that she did not remember searching the internet for Epstein, but may have read an article about Epstein.
Surveillance video from the jail also showed a flash of orange appearing near Epstein’s cell the night he died, and a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded the video showed a corrections officer “believed to be Noel” carrying linen to the area near Epstein’s cell.
In a sworn interview in 2021, Noel claimed she “never gave out linen,” and denied providing Epstein with excess linen that may have been used to form a noose.
Luigi Mangione (R) appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The judge overseeing Luigi Mangione’s murder case in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is set to issue a critical ruling Monday on what evidence and testimony prosecutors can use during the accused assassin’s murder trial.
New York Judge Gregory Carro is considering Mangione’s request to prohibit prosecutors from using the evidence that police seized from Mangione’s backpack — including the alleged murder weapon and writings that prosecutors say amount to a confession — as well as Mangione’s statements to law enforcement when he was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after the shooting.
Mangione’s state murder trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8, and Carro’s decision will help define the contours of the high-profile criminal trial. If he limits the use of evidence from Mangione’s backpack, prosecutors would be barred from showing the jury the purported murder weapon, writings allegedly outlining his escape route, a fake driver’s license, and thousands of dollars in cash.
Prosecutors would still have available surveillance footage of Thompson’s shooting death, as well as fingerprint and DNA evidence and a phone retrieved by police.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett — who is overseeing Mangione’s federal stalking case — reached a ruling in January allowing the use of the same evidence during Mangione’s federal trial, which is scheduled to begin in January 2027. In that case, Judge Garnett decided that the evidence in the backpack would have inevitably been discovered by law enforcement.
However, defense lawyers have argued that the search of the backpack without a warrant violated Mangione’s rights, and have repeatedly urged Judge Carro to block prosecutors from using the evidence.
“At the hearing, Altoona law enforcement officers repeatedly attempted to justify their warrantless search of Mr. Mangione’s backpack … instead, all these officers demonstrated was an utter disregard for a defendant’s constitutional rights and a shocking ignorance of basic search and seizure caselaw,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote in a state court filing.
Lawyers from the Manhattan district attorney’s office pushed back on those claims, arguing the officers acted “in deliberate and painstaking fashion” when they searched the backpack.
“At every step, the Altoona officers responded to this unexpected and alarming situation reasonably,” Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann wrote in a court filing, adding that officers later obtained a warrant for the bag “establishing an independent source for recovering the backpack’s contents.”
Mangione pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges after he was arrested for allegedly gunning down Thompson, a husband and father of two, on a Midtown Manhattan street in December 2024.
As Mangione prepares for his upcoming trial in September, his supporters continue to fund part of his legal defense. Earlier this month, on Mangione’s 28th birthday, his legal defense fund surpassed $1.5 million.
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers picket outside of Penn Station in New York, US, on Saturday, May 16, 2026. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For the first time in 32 years, tens of thousands of New Yorkers are bracing to begin the workweek without the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)after workers at the busiest commuter railroad in North America went on strike over the weekend.
More than 300,000 daily commuters rely on the LIRR to get from Long Island to New York City. State and local officials were scrambling over the weekend to get contingency plans in place, but warned commuters to expect New York City buses and subways to be crowded on Monday.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards told WABC in New York that he is expecting his borough to be a bottleneck on Monday as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is planning to use shuttle buses to transport essential workers from Long Island to subway stations in Queens.
“That’s not enough when our buses are overcrowded,” Richards said of the shuttle bus plan.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Sunday that commuters will also be allowed to park in the Citi Field parking lot, which is within walking distance to the 7 train on the New York City subway system.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked subway riders to be patient, but cautioned them to “prepare for heavier-than-usual traffic, crowded transit options and additional travel time.”
LIRR trains came to a halt at midnight on Saturday after the union representing thousands of rail workers and the MTA failed to reach an agreement on a new contract.
Kevin Sexton, the national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), one of the five unions representing LIRR workers, told reporters that he and other leaders could not come to an agreement over salary increases and health care costs before the negotiation deadline ended.
“We are far apart at this point and we feel it’s unnecessary because we went through the process,” Sexton said of the strike.
MTA CEO Janno Leiber said during a Sunday press conference with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that what the unions have asked for would force riders to “pay the cost of a labor settlement that blew up the MTA budget.”
“We said right up to the deadline that the unions had imposed, ‘Let’s talk, let’s keep talking,’ and we sat there in the hallway, so they couldn’t even avoid seeing us, that we were available to talk to them right up to and through the deadline,” Leiber said.
Leiber said the unions chose to “walk out” on the negotiations.
The LIRR unions called the job action an “open-ended strike,” telling ABC News that, despite claims from Leiber and Hochul, MTA officials had not reached out to them about negotiations.
It was unclear on Sunday afternoon whether any new negotiations are scheduled.
According to the union statement, talks broke down when the MTA added “healthcare takeaways and other concessionary issues to the table literally in the 11th hour before a midnight strike deadline. These regressive management demands had never been raised previously.”
But in an interview on Sunday with ABC New York City station WABC, Leiber denied the unions’ assertion that a disagreement over health insurance prompted the strike, calling it “complete nonsense.”
Lieber said the rail workers’ unions “rejected every single idea that we put on the table, and there were many.”
The unions are demanding wage increases of 14.5% over four years, WABC reports, while MTA officials have offered slightly smaller increases and a lump-sum payment in the contract’s fourth year to make up the difference. The proposed pay bumps are largely in line with contracts accepted by the LIRR’s conductors and New York City Transit workers, WABC reports.
In a statement released on Saturday, Gov. Hochul said the unions “represent the highest-paid workers of any railroad in the nation, yet they are demanding contracts that could raise fares as much as 8%, pit workers against one another, and risk tax hikes for Long Islanders.”
During her news conference on Sunday, Hochul struck a more conciliatory tone.
“The work you do is absolutely vital. I value your labor and I believe that you deserve fair wages and benefits. But this strike has put all of that at risk,” Hochul said.
The governor added, “Just three days of a strike would erase every dollar of additional salary that workers would receive under a new contract.”
Severe weather outlook for Monday, May 18, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Residents in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains are bracing for another day of severe weather threats, including possible tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail.
The severe weather, expected to extend into Monday and Tuesday, is forecast to be especially active from north-central Oklahoma up into Minnesota and western Wisconsin.
The greatest risk areas, a level 3 out of 5 “enhanced risk,” according to the National Weather Service, stretch from east-central Nebraska up to southwest Minnesota and include the cities of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Grand Island, Nebraska. Large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible in the enhanced risk area.
The new severe weather threats come a day after storms across the central part of the country prompted reports of tornadoes in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, and hail the size of baseballs in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska.
Thunderstorms near Concordia, Kansas, on Saturday produced estimated wind gusts of 90 mph, knocking down trees and power lines.
Hill City Airport in northwest Kansas reported wind gusts up to 82 mph. The strong winds also fueled dust storms in the area, which threatened driving conditions.
Thunderstorms on Saturday night prompted a flash flood emergency in central Grundy County, Missouri, including the city of Trenton, when six to eight inches of rain fell in a matter of hours.
The adverse weather conditions are expected to continue through the start of the workweek. On Monday, more than 30 million people from the central Plains to the Midwest are expected to be on alert for a potential outbreak of severe weather.
A level 4 out of 5 “moderate risk” advisory has been issued for parts of central and northeast Kansas into far southeast Nebraska, including the city of Topeka, Kansas. The risk for the area includes potentially strong tornadoes, hail larger than baseballs, and destructive winds.
A level 3 out of 5 enhanced risk advisory also extends from north-central Oklahoma into central Wisconsin, including the cities Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; and Des Moines, Iowa.
On Tuesday, a level 2 out of 5 “slight risk” advisory for severe weather is expected to stretch from northeast Texas to Michigan, and include potentially strong to severe thunderstorms.
Fire weather also impacting the Plains and Southwest Parts of the Plains and Southeast are also expecting critical fire weather conditions to continue into this week amid widespread warm, dry and windy conditions.
Several wildfires broke out in parts of Minnesota on Saturday and rapidly grew. The largest Minnesota wildfire, the Flanders Fire in Crow Wing County, has burned more than 1,100 acres and was 0% contained on Sunday morning, prompting evacuation orders in the city of Crosslake.
The Minnesota fires prompted Gov. Tim Walz to declare a state of emergency Sunday morning, including mobilizing the state’s National Guard.
Dozens of wildfires also broke out over the weekend across the Great Plains from Montana to the Dakotas, as well as in Texas and New Mexico over the last week.
On Sunday, the greatest wildfire threats are in areas of northwest Texas, including Amarillo, and parts of New Mexico and Kansas.
Red-flag fire danger warnings have also been issued from Arizona to southern Nebraska, as well as in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley. Severe to extreme drought conditions exist in some of the red-flag warning areas, where expected wind gusts topping 55 mph threaten to rapidly spread wildfires.
The extreme fire weather danger will continue into Monday in parts of far eastern New Mexico, far southeast Colorado, far southwest Kansas, parts of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.
Summer-like temperatures expected in the East Meanwhile, a big warm-up is expected for most of the East, where afternoon temperatures on Sunday and Monday are forecast to reach the 80s and 90s in many places.
The temperature in New York City is expected to reach the mid-80s on Monday and could hit the lower 90s in Washington, D.C.
It will be even hotter on Tuesday for a large swath of the I-95 corridor, with highs in the 90s from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and New York City.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, during a confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP and the potential political fallout for his perceived enemies will face another test on Saturday in Louisiana’s Republican primary.
Incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy is competing against Trump-backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow (LA-5) and John Fleming, the state Treasurer and a former House Freedom Caucus Freedom member who served in multiple posts in the first Trump administration.
It’s expected the threeway split could cause the race to go to a runoff next month if no candidate wins an outright majority in Saturday’s primary.
Trump upended the race in late January when he encouraged Letlow to enter in hopes of defeating Cassidy, who in 2021 voted to convict the president in his second impeachment trial. She launched her campaign just days later.
Cassidy, asked by CNN on Friday why Trump wants him replaced, said, “I can’t understand the president’s mind.”
He continued, “I’m not claiming the president loves me, no, but you can work with people even if you don’t love each other if you got a common goal. And my goal is to make my country and my state and everybody who lives here better off.”
Throughout the campaign, Cassidy has argued his record proves he delivers for Louisianans. The two-term senator has touted his work helping pass the HALT Fentanyl Act, negotiating the passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and championing healthcare.
In 2024, Trump won the deep-red state with 60% of the vote, and if his preferred candidate wins, it would mark another victory for the president in his efforts to oust those he views as disloyal. Trump-backed candidates recently defeated several Indiana state senators who opposed his redistricting plans.
Cassidy could now be staring down the end of a long political career as part of a shrinking class of GOP lawmakers to have broken with the president. He is one of three remaining senators in the upper chamber to have voted to convict Trump.
Letlow has been anything but shy about Trump’s endorsement, casting Cassidy as disloyal and Fleming as out of touch with the president. Her campaign messaging has focused in part on defending parental rights and securing the border.
The first Republican woman from Louisiana to be elected to Congress, Letlow romped to victory in 2021. She ran in a special election for the House after her husband, who was elected to the office, died from COVID-19-related complications before he could take office.
Cassidy’s campaign has labeled her “Liberal Letlow” and unleashed a wave of attacks portraying her as a champion of DEI over comments she made in 2020 while working at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
In a recent debate against Fleming, Letlow defended her position at the time, arguing “the left completely hijacked” DEI and she has “spent the last five years in Congress working against it.”
Meanwhile Fleming, who argues he is the most conservative candidate, told ABC News some pressured him to drop his campaign.
Fleming said he was eventually able to reach Trump by phone and the president called him “fantastic.”
However Trump’s public endorsement of Letlow has not changed.
Despite their fraught relationship, Cassidy has, at times, supported Trump’s agenda. Cassidy, a physician and longtime proponent of vaccines, grilled Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a vaccine skeptic — during his confirmation hearing but cast the deciding vote to confirm his nomination out of committee.
Most recently, Trump blamed Cassidy, chairman of the Senate health committee, for the stalling of his surgeon general pick, Make America Healthy Again-aligned Casey Means.
The shift from open, nonpartisan primaries to a closed system also complicates Cassidy’s road to victory. Registered and unaffiliated, or “No Party” voters, choose between the two parties. If no candidate receives a majority, the race will head to a runoff on June 27.
In Louisiana, Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans with roughly 1 million registered voters in each party, according to the Secretary of State office. There are more than 813,000 “No Party” voters.
Adding to the fire is Landry’s move to postpone the House primaries in the nationwide redistricting battle — even as absentee ballots had been returned — while keeping the Senate race on May 16. Lawsuits have been filed in response and some, including Cassidy and Fleming, warn the move is leaving voters confused.
Fleming hedged on whether he would endorse an opponent should he lose the race, adding he takes issue with what he calls dishonest ads, particularly from those backing Letlow.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.
Business owner Mark Spencer is also running in the GOP primary.
In the Democratic primary, Nick Albares, Gary Crockett and Jamie Davis are vying for the nomination to unseat Cassidy. The Cook Political Report rates the race as solid Republican in the Pelican State.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. CDT on May 16.
U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he prepares to board Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport on May 15, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Department of Justice is finalizing a deal to launch a so-called “Truth and Justice Commission” and establish a compensation fund of $1,776,000,000 to pay claims made by alleged victims of government “weaponization” in exchange for President Donald Trump dropping his ongoing lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, sources told ABC News.
Sources told ABC News that the proposed deal — which is likely to face legal hurdles and has already been criticized by Democrats as a “slush fund” for Trump’s allies — arose after months of deliberations between the White House and DOJ officials who originally attempted to craft a legal justification for the settlement to compensate Trump directly.
Internally, DOJ lawers believed they could ignore the conflict of interest outright, privately arguing that Trump has both the right to sue as a private citizen and the power to command the executive branch as president, according to sources familiar with their discussions.
Advocating a centuries-old legal principle known as the “rule of necessity,” DOJ lawyers have argued that no alternative existed other than letting the lawsuit proceed with Trump acting as the plaintiff while being directly in charge of the defendants — the IRS and Treasury — according to sources.
Sources said that plan was ultimately scuttled in favor of the $1.776 billion compensation fund — with the figure being a nod to the nation’s founding — as the judge overseeing Trump’s IRS lawsuit began to raise issues with Trump suing the very government he leads. In an order last month, U.S. District Judge Katheen Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers in the case and the Department of Justice to submit court filings by next week to justify whether both sides of the case were sufficiently adverse for the matter to proceed.
Terms of the proposed compensation arrangement could change before the deal is finalized, sources said.
Judge Williams also appointed a group of prominent attorneys — including a former solicitor general as well as a federal judge — to weigh in on the case.
In a court filing this week, the attorneys identified serious issues with the lawsuit, arguing that Trump has “extraordinary” control over the defendants in the case and that the “circumstances raise the specter that Defendants and their attorneys may instead be operating at the President’s direction.”
“Additionally, since taking office, President Trump has significantly expanded the President’s oversight and control over the Attorney General and DOJ, including in ways that blur the line between fidelity to the President’s policy priorities and fidelity to the President himself,” the filing said.
Trump sued the IRS after a government contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing the tax information of Trump and other wealthy Americans and leaking it to media outlets in 2019 and 2020.
With Judge Williams scrutinizing the case, sources said that DOJ officials formulated the proposal to create a compensation fund on the condition that Trump drops the lawsuit as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump himself would not be eligible for payment from the fund for those three dropped claims, though entities associated with the president are not barred from filing claims, the sources said.
Sources said the “President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission” would include five commissioners — four of whom are appointed by the attorney general — that Trump would have the right to remove without cause. The commission would also be under no obligation to disclose the process for awarding the nearly $2 billion.
It is unclear how Judge Williams might respond to the proposed settlement — which has yet been disclosed to the court — though DOJ lawyers believe the settlement would not require any approval from the court.
Democratic lawmakers have already raised concerns about the reported settlement and called on Congress to pass legislation to restrict the use of taxpayer dollars for the proposed compensation fund.
“It’s outright corruption. What we’re seeing here is outright corruption,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Friday. “We’re looking at a billion dollars for a ballroom; $1.7 billion for a slush fund for the president’s friends.”
Across the aisle, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick suggested the matter could end up before the Supreme Court.
“I don’t even know how that’s allowable to happen,” Fitzpatrick told ABC News regarding the compensation fund. “It sounds like a question our colleagues across the street are going to have to resolve pretty quickly.”
Medical staff direct some of the last passengers to be evacuated from the MV Hondius on May 11, 2026, in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain. (Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Health experts tell ABC News that the current science behind the hantavirus that circulated throughout the MV Hondius does not show the same levels of transmission as with COVID-19, while acknowledging that the scenario may seem similar to the beginning of the 2020 pandemic.
“Our current understanding is that person-to-person transmission of Andes virus is relatively rare and generally associated with prolonged close contact,” the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention public health assessment said. “There is also no documented evidence of presymptomatic transmission.”
Officials around the globe have taken major steps to prevent the spread of the hantavirus, and an American doctor who was onboard noted how conditions on the cruise ship may have helped the virus propagate.
In the U.S., the boat’s 18 American passengers have been put in quarantine in Nebraska, while more than 40 people with exposure to the sick are being monitored to see if they develop the illness.
“In the vast majority of cases it happens when people breathe in mouse secretions,” Dr. Emily Abdoler, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, who specializes in infectious diseases, told ABC News.
“The Andes strain found in Chile and Argentina has the possibility of human-to-human transmission, but that’s really more really close contact. It’s not sharing the same household,” she added. “It’s more like sharing the same bed.”
Dr. Stephen Kornfeld, an American oncologist who became the ship’s de facto doctor after the Hondius’ physician contracted the virus, initially received inconclusive results with samples taken from the ship but later tested negative.
Speaking to ABC News from his quarantine on Thursday, Kornfeld noted that conditions on the ship — including ventilation and the size of rooms — could have created a “complicated” situation for transmission while observing some social casual contact.
“If you do have casual contact, you’re doing it repetitively,” he said. “There were three rooms that we would gather in many times a day, often for an hour or an hour and a half, for lectures and discussions and meals. And I can just envision lots of frequent casual contacts, and perhaps over time that adds up to something more than just a single casual contact.”
Abdoler, who helped diagnose a case of hantavirus in Michigan in 2021 — the type we have in the U.S. that does not spread between people –said the benefit that medical professionals and agencies, such as the World Health Organization, have now is that the hantavirus has been researched for over 30 years. It is not a new virus.
While the data around the Andes strain believed to have been on the boat is still limited given the rare number of cases outside of South America, Abdoler said there does not appear to be any indication that the transmission methods have changed for the Andes strain.
ABC News medical contributor and epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein concurred, saying that previous research suggests the hantavirus is a respiratory illness. That means germs can be coughed up, he noted, but it is not an aerosol-based virus.
“It’s not like COVID or measles where it could linger in the air for some time,” he said.
Brownstein added that the incubation period for the virus is long, and despite the lower risk for person-to-person transmission, it is critical that health officials stick to their policies to isolate and monitor anyone connected to the Hondius. Isolation can then be initiated if they become a positive case.
“Incubation can be anywhere from one to eight weeks,” he noted.
During a news briefing Friday, WHO officials stressed that said there is no evidence so far that the virus has changed to become more transmissible or more severe.
Officials said transmission is believed to be based on several factors, including how infectious the patient is, the environment and whether protection and PPE was used.
On Friday, acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Jay Bhattacharya told reporters no cases of hantavirus have been reported in the U.S.
There are now at least 10 cases that have been linked to the ship’s outbreak. Two passengers died from the virus and a third death has been deemed probable by WHO.
Sixteen Hondius passengers, including Kornfeld, initially were flown to the quarantine center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and had not shown any symptoms as of early Friday. Kornfeld had been placed in a biocontainment unit at the facility.
Two other American passengers were flown to Atlanta for “assessment and care,” according to officials. They were later transferred to the quarantine unit in Nebraska on Friday.
The remainder of the passengers are in quarantine at home and are being monitored.
WHO warned more positive cases could still appear during quarantine because the virus’ incubation period is long, but said that would not necessarily mean the outbreak is growing.
Abdoler noted that the fact that there have not been as many positive cases from the ship and their contacts shows that the data about the Andes transmission is holding up and there are no signs that the virus can spread as easily as other pathogens.
She noted that he is glad that the risk is being taken seriously and that those that have been exposed are being monitored.
“My sense is that there is no really need to panic, but [WHO] is taking a very conservative approach to the outbreak and asking everyone to isolate during the intubation period,” she said.
“I think it is good they are taking a conservative approach because there are unknowns, but I am not personally altering my personal practices of travel or how I go out,” she added.
– ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this report.
Boat off the Dhigurah island coastline with its long white sand beach lined with palm trees in the Maldives (@Didier Marti/Getty Images)
(MALDIVES) Five Italian nationals, including a mother and her daughter, died while scuba diving in a deep underwater cave in the Maldives, according to Italian and Maldivian officials, as a risky search effort attempts to recover the remaining missing divers.
The body of one of the divers has since been recovered in a cave about 200 feet deep, authorities said. The remaining four divers are believed to be inside the 200-foot-long cave, according to the Maldives National Defense Force.
Additional divers and special equipment were being sent to the area Friday for the “very dangerous, high-risk operation,” it said. The search was suspended Friday due to bad weather and the recovery operation is expected to resume on Saturday, The Associated Press reported.
Maldivian presidential spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef extended his “deepest condolences” to the people of Italy following the “tragic diving incident” in a statement on Friday. He said the search for the four remaining divers “remains our highest priority.”
Italy’s Foreign Ministry said the five Italian nationals died in a scuba diving accident. They were reported to have died “while attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 meters,” it said.
“The reconstruction of the incident is still underway by the Maldivian authorities,” the ministry said.
The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and the University of Genoa (UniGe) identified the deceased divers as Monica Montefalcone, a marine scientist and associate professor at UniGe; her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, a UniGe biomedical engineering student; Muriel Oddenino, a UniGe research fellow; and marine biologist Federico Gualtieril, a recent UniGe graduate in marine biology and ecology.
The institute also identified one of the victims as diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti.
Montefalcone had won multiple awards for her work to study and protect the marine environment, the institute said.
The Italian ambassador from the embassy in Colombo arrived in the Maldives on Friday to meet with Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard officials, the ministry said.
The Italian Embassy in Colombo is in contact with the victims’ families and is providing assistance to 20 other Italian nationals aboard the Duke of Yoke who participated in the expedition, the ministry said.
“The vessel is awaiting an improvement in weather conditions in order to return to Malé,” the ministry said Friday.
(HARRISON COUNTY, Ind.) — Three people were found dead in a murder-suicide after the shooter expressed suicidal thoughts to a family member, according to authorities.
Harrison County deputies responded to a welfare check on Wednesday at a residence in southern Indiana after a Mississippi man reported that his brother expressed suicidal thoughts to him in a phone call earlier in the day, according to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies found a dead man on the front porch, identified as 36-year-old Brett Dixon, the sheriff’s department said.
Inside the residence, two additional people were found dead, Melissa Cochran Dixon, 54, and Paul Dixon, 61, according to the sheriff’s office.
Brett Dixon was shot twice — in the chest and head — Melissa Cochran Dixon suffered a single gunshot wound to the head and Paul Dixon sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office said it believes Paul Dixon is responsible for the shootings and said there is no threat to the community and no suspect at large.
“This incident is a tragic loss, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family, extended family, and friends of those involved,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
