Where is it, what to know

A hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship has shaken public opinion and reignited fears of a new global health scare as passengers dispersed across multiple countries, including the United States.

World Health Organization reported 11 cases As of Tuesday, nine were linked to the confirmed outbreak, including three deaths. As of Wednesday, no Americans had tested positive.

Other passengers are being monitored at specialized medical units in the US, including 18 in Nebraska and Atlanta. A handful of people not connected to the ship are also attacked assessed for possible exposure in several states. Specific treatments for hantavirus are still years away: Moderna It rose nearly 12% on Friday after it confirmed it was conducting early research on a potential vaccine to protect against hantavirus.

But as the number of individuals exposed to the virus and public concern increases, health experts aim to quell fears of another outbreak. Their message: Once again, this is not Covid-19.

Unlike Covid, measles or flu, the Andean strain of hantavirus in the outbreak does not spread easily between people, making the risk of spread to the public low. Experts said that more cases may emerge in the coming weeks due to the long incubation period of hantavirus.

Dr. D., chief hospital epidemiologist and infectious diseases physician at the University of Florida. “We don’t expect a lot of infections, though, and those infections will probably be limited to passengers exposed on the ship, especially now that we have containment measures,” Nicole Iovine said in an interview.

But other experts say the outbreak raises broader concerns about how well-equipped the United States is to respond to future infectious disease threats, especially following budget cuts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Trump administration. Decision to withdraw from WHO last year.

While experts say the CDC has the hantavirus outbreak under control, others warn that it is exposing cracks in the nation’s public health infrastructure that could have larger consequences in the face of a more contagious pathogen.

“I don’t expect any significant risk to the American public. But if this is a stress test, we failed it,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown University. “Imagine if this really was a highly infectious agent.”

Meanwhile Contemporary

Here’s what you need to know about where the hantavirus outbreak is and what it says about the United States’ ability to control infectious diseases.

Hantavirus is transmitted to humans primarily through contact with infected wild rodents, particularly by inhaling airborne particles from their urine, feces, or saliva. Cases of hantavirus disease are rare in the United States: 890 cases were reported from 1993 to 2023, mostly in Western states. CDC data shows.

The Andean strain of the virus seen in the outbreak and found in South America is the only hantavirus that can spread from person to person. Still, since human-to-human transmission is rare, the medical community is getting clues from previous outbreaks.

Dr. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Andean strain typically spreads through “close and often prolonged contact” with a person who is infected and showing symptoms, Kari Debbink said.

Debbink said this is unlike Covid, which “spreads quite efficiently without very long exposure.” Hantavirus is not considered an airborne virus because it does not remain in the air and infect others, as respiratory viruses such as Covid, flu and measles do.

But cruise ships like the MV Hondius are considered ideal environments for the spread of diseases because they bring together a wide variety of people and keep them in close quarters for days or even weeks.

Dr. D., CEO of the public health organization Wellness Equity Alliance and former chief medical officer of New York City’s Covid response. “Cruise ships are one of the biggest threats to public health. They are floating petri dishes isolated in water,” said Tyler Evans.

WHO researchers believe the outbreak was caused by a Dutch couple who were on the cruise ship MV Hondius and later died from infections.

Director General of the World Health Organization Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the couple went on a bird watching trip in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay before boarding the plane. May 7 briefing. The couple’s birding trip included visits to places “where species of mice known to carry hantavirus are found,” he said.

Debbink said Hantavirus has an incubation period of one to six weeks after exposure, which means more cases will likely emerge. But he added that people who have been in contact with infected people are being monitored for symptoms in special facilities, so “this needs to be brought under control pretty quickly.”

Embers CDC cuts nearly 10% of workforce By early 2025, it will result in fewer epidemiologists and scientific staff serving in the field or coordinating intergovernmental interventions. There is currently no permanent CDC director or U.S. surgeon general, and both positions play critical roles in responding to disease threats.

“They don’t have the right leadership at the CDC,” Evans said. “They’re on a ship without a captain at the helm, so they’re kind of scrambling and doing the best they can. There are serious concerns about that.”

Gostin noted that the CDC was lagging behind the WHO and European health officials, saying the agency was stepping up its actions “a week after the international community began mobilizing around a potential global health crisis.” The outbreak was first reported to WHO on May 2, and WHO quickly took a number of measures, including assigning an expert on board.

The CDC released its first public statement about the outbreak on May 6 and First official health warning On May 8, US doctors were warned about the possibility of imported cases. The agency confirmed that it sent a team to Spain’s Canary Islands on May 7, where the ship arrived two days later, and sent a second group to Nebraska as part of a plan to evacuate U.S. passengers from the ship.

While the CDC currently works with the WHO, experts say the Trump administration’s decision to cut ties with the international health agency has harmed the United States’ ability to respond to future outbreaks. For example, the United States no longer has direct, automatic access to real-time information about emerging health threats from WHO member countries.

Neil Maniar, a professor of public health at Northeastern University, said the response to hantavirus stands in stark contrast to 2020, when the CDC worked closely with international partners during Covid.

“That’s what it takes to effectively respond to these types of outbreaks, and that’s where the system is really broken,” Maniar said.

“Because there will be epidemics in the future, we need to use our country’s expertise and resources to respond,” he added. “It should ring major alarm bells for everyone in terms of our readiness and ability to keep this country safe.”