Just over six years after COVID-19 pandemic reshaped public health anxieties, renewed concerns over hantavirus may cause some uneasiness locally, as three New Yorkers were among the 18 American passengers evacuated to the United States following the outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship.
As of now, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention says overall risk to the American public is extremely low, and routine travel can continue as normal.
Dr. Stephen Thomas, an infectious disease specialist at SUNY Upstate Medical University, says hantavirus can be deadly in severe cases, but doesn’t believe the recent outbreak should cause widespread panic.
Thomas claims the public reaction may reflect lingering trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are a lot of people that have, understandably so, a little post-traumatic stress,” he continued referring to lingering anxieties tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, “and when they see headlines, they start getting triggered, and a lot of bad memories are coming back.”
So what exactly is hantavirus, and how does infection occur?
The virus is usually contracted from contact with rodents in areas where the disease is prevalent, especially when exposed to their urine, droppings, or saliva.
In New York State that occurance is rare. The CDC says more than 90% of documented hantavirus cases between 1995 and 2023 have occured West of the Mississippi River.
The strain linked to the recent cruise ship outbreak, known as the Andes virus, is one of the few hantaviruses capable of spreading from person to person, though health officials say transmission typically requires prolonged close contact.
“As luck would have it, the one hantavirus strain, this Andes virus variant, is the one they think can be transmitted from person to person,” Thomas said.
But still, this isn’t something to take lightly. CDC data shows roughly 35% of confirmed hantavirus cases in the United States resulted in death.
“People can have these more mild to moderate, non-specific symptoms, but then they can kind of fall off a cliff and they can develop very severe respiratory distress,” Thomas said.
Symptoms normally occur between four and 42 days after exposure, but can worsen rapidly if a patient develops Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, a severe respiratory illness that causes fluid to build up in the lungs and can lead to organ failure or death without immediate medical treatment.
“Anywhere from three to four out of 10 people who develop HPS can succumb to the illness. But, in a subgroup of those people that do develop the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, they might need to be ventilated. They might need to have ECMO.”
ECMO, short for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, is an advanced life-support treatment typically used when a patient’s heart or lungs can no longer function adequately on their own.
“With ECMO, you're actually taking blood out of the person, putting it through the machine, oxygenating the machine and then returning, turning the blood to the person,” Thomas countinued about the machines, “They're not rare. They're at most major medical medical centers.”
Staying Involved
After President Donald Trump’s funding cuts to the CDC and the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization, Thomas says the moves could exacerbate the risk of being unprepared for future disease outbreaks.
“There's reciprocity in terms of what our nation is putting into this and what we expect others to put into it,” Thomas said. “I don't think it's advisable to not be engaged. I don't think it's a good thing to not be sitting at the table.”
“I think that the United States has an opportunity to be leading the charge in research, basic translational clinical research, disease, global disease surveillance,” he continued. “We are in a position where we can not just do the country a lot of good in terms of national health security, but the planet a lot of good.”
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul in a recent press conference voiced her support for the CDC and the importance of New York remaining prepared.
“I want to make sure that the CDC is capable of handling something should it grow larger than they're predicting. And I say that because I know over a year ago, there were significant cuts at the CDC as part of the Elon Musk Doge cuts,” Hochul said.
“There's no panic, no concern. But I just need to be proactive, that's all,” she continued, “and that's not a sign that we think something is worse than we're being told.”
For now, health and government leaders continue to stress that the overall risk to the public remains very low, especially in New York, where hantavirus infections remain uncommon.
Still, healthcare experts say the outbreak is another reminder of how quickly infectious disease concerns can reenter public conversation in a post-pandemic world.
