‘Not like coronavirus’: Indian-American scientist says US doesn’t need to panic about hantavirus

Indian-born scientist Jay Bhattacharya has urged Americans not to panic over a hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship off Spain’s Canary Islands, insisting the situation is “not COVID-19” and is unlikely to turn into a large-scale public health crisis.The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the outbreak is being managed according to time-honored hantavirus containment protocols that have been successful in the past.“I don’t want to cause public panic,” Bhattacharya said.“We hope to treat it with our hantavirus protocols, which have successfully controlled outbreaks in the past,” he said.“The key message I want to convey to our viewers is that this is not COVID-19. This is not causing [same] He added, “We should not panic when the evidence is weak.”The outbreak occurred on the MV ‘Hondius’ expedition cruise ship, which was carrying about 150 passengers. According to World Health Organization (WHO) officials, at least three passengers have died since April 11 and five others have developed severe hantavirus symptoms.Hantaviruses are commonly associated with rodents and can cause severe respiratory illness, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The CDC says about 38% of people who develop respiratory symptoms die from the disease. However, health experts stress that the virus spreads far less easily than Covid-19 and often requires close contact to spread from person to person.The ship has since anchored near the Canary Islands and passengers have begun to disembark. There are reportedly 17 Americans on board, some of whom are expected to be quarantined at a specialized facility in Nebraska upon their return to the United States.Bhattacharya defended the CDC’s response, saying health officials had contacted affected passengers and were closely monitoring the situation.“The CDC has contacted every passenger,” he explained.“We are interviewing them and preparing to evacuate them to the Nebraska facility at the University of Nebraska, which is a great facility,” he added.He said the agency was following the same strategy it used during the 2018 Andean hantavirus outbreak in Eppuyan, Argentina, which killed 11 people.“This will include advice to these…travelers on staying in Nebraska if they wish, or if they want to go home and their family situation allows it, and driving them home safely without exposing others on the road,” he said.Seven U.S. passengers had left the ship weeks before the first deaths were reported. They later traveled to states such as Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Hantavirus symptoms can take up to six weeks to appear, so health authorities are still monitoring them.Bhattacharya also explained why the CDC is not tracking every passenger who may have traveled near these individuals.“Passengers on the ship who flew home were asymptomatic when they flew home,” he said. “Because the virus cannot spread unless someone has active symptoms, passengers on the plane are considered contacts.”“There is no reason to do this kind of recursive contact tracing,” he added.Bhattacharya also heads the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate last year. Born in Calcutta, he is a professor of health policy at Stanford University who became famous during the Covid-19 pandemic as a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized lockdowns and vaccine mandates.