A cruise ship hantavirus outbreak that caused three deaths earlier this month has sparked concerns about the public’s risk for exposure. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is low risk for contracting hantavirus.
Hantaviruses are a “family of viruses.” The cruise ship outbreak strain is the Andes virus and, is the only hantavirus strain known to spread person-to-person and can cause death and illnesses such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a respiratory disease, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which attacks the kidneys.
The CDC said there are no confirmed U.S. cases of Andes virus resulting from the cruise ship outbreak to date.
And amid fears that an epidemic, or even another COVID-19 pandemic, is brewing, infectious disease experts say a hantavirus-borne pandemic is unlikely; and that while hantavirus illness is more severe and deadly than COVID-19 once it is contracted, it is harder for people to get hantavirus than COVID-19 because it is commonly spread through contact with — touching or inhaling — contaminated rodent saliva, urine or droppings.
Is there risk of a pandemic?
“This virus is really one that’s found in wild rodents,” he said. “Infected animals might make their way inside a cabin in the mountains or a remote ranch, but we’re not typically seeing them in suburban or urban environments,” said Dr. Jorge Salinas, medical director of infection prevention at Stanford Health Care.
Salinas also said in an interview with Stanford Medicine’s News Center that the hantavirus, including the Andes strain, cannot cause a global pandemic.
“There are respiratory viruses like flu and COVID-19 that are incredibly efficient at transmitting person to person. That’s what they have evolved to do,” Salinas said. “Hantavirus just isn’t like that. It can jump to a few people after close contact with an infected, symptomatic individual, but we don’t expect it to spread very far.”
And administration health officials are sharing similar guidance.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, NIH director and acting director of the CDC, said in recent interviews with CBS News and Fox News that the hantavirus has “a very different epidemiological risk than COVID-19” and that Americans “should not worry.”
Last week the CDC issued a Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to clinicians warning of a new cluster of hantavirus disease cases caused by the Andes virus. The advisory stated, “The risk to the public’s health in the United States is considered extremely low at this time,” aligning with Bhattacharya’s messaging.
Lawmakers criticize Trump response
But some lawmakers disagree about the threat level and are criticizing the Trump Administration’s response to the outbreak and its funding cuts for infectious disease research. The cuts are in the spotlight given that there is no hantavirus vaccine or antiviral therapies that have proven to be effective.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded that the Trump Administration restore the infectious disease, vaccine, and viral-threat funding, which was axed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Included in the 2025 funding cuts was a pilot project led by the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases network, whose research includes infectious and zoonotic diseases, which spread from animals to people, including hantavirus and the very strain behind the cruise ship outbreak.
Following an executive order to end federal “gain of function” research funding, the 10 Centers, established in 2020, were closed with a National Institutes of Health stop-work order that cited the work was dangerous and a poor use of taxpayer dollars.
And in April 2025, all full-time employees of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) were laid off as part of a swath of planned layoffs that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced.
World Health Organization recommendations
“The very CDC inspectors and port health workers we need to track this virus, the people whose entire job is to keep deadly diseases off cruise ships and out of our country, Donald Trump fired them. This White House will tell you the risk to Americans is low. How do they know? They have made it impossible to find out,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a May 10th statement.
Besides the three cruise ship deaths, at least nine passengers and crew members got sick from the virus outbreak, and more cases are expected. And although researchers have been working on a hantavirus vaccine, lack of funding will delay potential effective treatments for many years.
Meanwhile, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) told countries to prepare for hantavirus cases urging leaders to follow WHO’s recommendations that include which include a 42-day quarantine, monitoring, and contact tracing.
“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak, but of course the situation could change and, given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” Ghebreyesus said at a press conference this week.
The Trump Administration cancelled its WHO membership in January 2026, and Senator Schumer is calling for the administration to rejoin, “to protect Americans as the outbreak spreads.”
Hantavirus Resources
World Health Organization Hantavirus Fact Sheet
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About Hantavirus
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