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Public health experts are raising alarms about what they see as a muted public response by the U.S. government to the hantavirus outbreak. The outbreak started on a cruise ship, and as NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports, there are now eight cases of the rodent-borne disease, including three deaths.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: On April 11, a Dutch man aboard the cruise ship died after contracting hantavirus. It was not until the evening of May 6 - 3 1/2 weeks later - that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its first statement on the topic. It was three paragraphs and said the State Department is leading a whole-of-government response, but it lacked details. That surprised Carlos del Rio, of Emory University's School of Public Health. He says, at this point, cruise ship passengers had already disembarked to over a dozen countries, including the U.S.
CARLOS DEL RIO: CDC typically would put out something called HANs, the health alert notice (ph).
EMANUEL: When he spoke with media yesterday, del Rio says that this notice would have provided guidance to the medical community, the latest outbreak details, as well as information on how the disease spreads and how to contain it. In past outbreaks like SARS or COVID, he says there would also have been regular press briefings so the public knows what's happening. And CDC scientists would be at work.
DEL RIO: I would envision that by now, many, many days ago, we would have seen a team from CDC deployed to the area. And we haven't seen that. So to me, the silence that we're seeing from our premier public health institution is really concerning to me.
JEANNE MARRAZZO: So this - to me, not overstating it is a travesty.
EMANUEL: Jeanne Marrazzo heads the Infectious Disease (ph) Society of America. She attributes the lack of a public response to major funding and workforce cuts the Trump administration made over the past year and a half to public health and outbreak response. The CDC has lost at least a quarter of its staff, thousands of employees.
MARRAZZO: We can see this as a sentinel event. It's not limited to hantavirus. It's really how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I'm very sorry to say that we are not prepared.
EMANUEL: She wonders, for example, if the government is working on an emergency use authorization for experimental treatments or vaccines, just like they did for COVID. Marrazzo says, it makes sense here, since hantavirus can be deadly and there is no specific treatment.
MARRAZZO: I mean, maybe that stuff is happening, but it does not give me a lot of assurance or reassurance that we're not hearing about any of it.
EMANUEL: CDC did not respond to NPR's questions, but in a media statement, it said the Trump administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans and that it is in close contact with the cruise ship staff, American passengers and international authorities. According to a Health and Human Services official who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, there is a team at CDC working on a hantavirus response, and several states - including Texas, California, Georgia and Virginia - have been notified by the CDC about residents who were passengers on the ship. Even though President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, the WHO says from a scientific and technical standpoint, their collaboration on hantavirus is like it used to be before the withdrawal. Anais Legand is with WHO.
ANAIS LEGAND: We have very positive, regular interaction almost every single day.
EMANUEL: Most of this work appears to be happening behind the scenes. Doctors in the U.S., like Abraar Karan, say they are getting minimal information. He's an infectious disease expert at Stanford University and says this is part of a broader trend.
ABRAAR KARAN: Now, I don't even think about, you know, what is the CDC saying? Or, like, what is the federal government saying? Like, that hadn't even crossed my mind, funny enough.
EMANUEL: While the WHO says the risk to the general public of hantavirus is low, some experts say they're worried about what the lack of a U.S. public response means for the next outbreak.
Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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