LIVE FEED: Hantavirus patients from cruise brought to Atlanta; Emory gives update

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:25]recording in progress.

[00:00:52]You want the same?

[00:01:05]>> You want to take a picture of it or do you want me to read it out to you?

[00:01:17]So can see this.

[00:01:19]>> Mhm.

[00:02:41]Okay.

[00:07:39]Hello everybody. Thanks for joining us today and and um joining us for a really busy day. Um I want to introduce our two guests today. I'm I'm Janet Christenberry. I do uh work with our media relations team here at Emory and um want to introduce our two guests. Um Dr. Anishh Meta um will speak first.

[00:07:55]He's our chief of infectious diseases at Emory University Hospital. Um professor of medicine at Emory School of Medicine.

[00:08:01]Um and he's also co-principal investigator of NITECH and you'll learn a little bit about NITECH today. Um and then we'll have uh Mr. David Fitter with the CDC. Um and he is the head of CDC's HANA virus response and director of CDC's division of global migration health. So we'll kick it off with uh Dr. Meta first.

[00:08:24]>> Good evening everyone. My name is Anish Meta. Um I am uh infectious disease physician here at Emory University Hospital. Also serve as the chief of infectious disease services here at Emory University Hospital and also have the honor of being co-principal investigator of the Asper funded National Emerging Special Pathogen Training and Education Center otherwise known as NITE. So I'll start with a quick update on our current situation.

[00:08:51]This weekend we learned of the uh possible and then confirmed diagnosis of the Andes virus haunt virus infection on the MV Hyundai cruise ship. Since that time um Emory University's Sirrus communicable diseases unit, NEC and the uh our 13 respect uh facilities around the country have been preparing for the care of patients with Andes virus. We have been preparing for years for viruses such as Andy's viruses and we are well aware of how haunt viruses such as antiviruses affect the human body and how physician colleagues healthcare colleagues around the country around the world have been treating patients in years past with viruses such as this. In our preparation uh we uh had our teams put together. We developed all the information we needed for this care. And this morning, the Emry Series Communicable Diseases Unit was uh asked and did receive two individuals from the MVS Hondas cruise ship um following their evacuation u from the Canary Islands. One individual uh was deemed to be symptomatic uh on evaluation u prior to leaving um the Canary Islands and the second individual uh was considered an asymptomatic um but close contact to this uh primary individual and um both are here at Emory in our Sears communical diseases unit. One is undergoing uh treatment and the other one is undergoing further evaluation and monitoring. Our team um performed very well. Um we uh performed as expected with our partners. We really want to thank all of our federal, state, and local partners in particularly uh Grady uh EMS who we have trained with for years who brought the patient very safely and efficiently from Hartsville Jackson to the Emory facility. We had a very easy and expected transfer of both individuals into our unit um without any problems. We are also um thankful for our continued and in real time collaboration with Georgia Department of Public Health, CDC and our colleagues at Asper who supported this mission and continue to support us as we move forward. We have um uh the uh Emory uh serious communicable diseases unit was started in uh 2002 with the uh collaboration and support of the CDC. uh we have been prepared for patients with serious communicable diseases for many many years and notably in 2014 we were asked by the US state department and federal government to care for four individuals with uh Ebola virus disease three of which were evacuated from West Africa and one of which was a domestic case. That domestic case really opened the eyes of all of us in health care in addition to our federal partners that we needed to prepare US health care systems better for uh novel infectious diseases such as Ebola, Marberg and things like the Andes virus. Uh following that outbreak um the federal government HHS and specifically Asper tapped three hospitals, Emory University Hospital, University of Nebraska Medical Center and Belleview Hospital. the three civilian facilities that cared for patients with Ebola virus disease successfully and returned them home to their families to better prepare health care systems in the United States to prevent the domestic outbreaks such as what we had um in Texas in 2014.

[00:12:29]We since that time have had the fortune of being continuously funded by Asper to reach out to u and develop 13 federally designated bioontainment units or what we now call highle isolation units across the United States to make sure that every region of the US has one of these facilities. In addition, NEC with its respect partners such as the Emirates Sears Communicable Diseases Unit work with local, regional, and national groups, health care systems from frontline hospitals to tertiary care hospitals to make sure that we are all prepared. All of our healthcare workers are prepared to recognize, identify, isolate and inform um when there is a concern for a serious communicable diseases and protect our healthcare workers so that we can effectively and safely care for individuals with these novel infections.

[00:13:25]Um we are uh proud that the system came together the national special pattern system of care that we've been developing u since 2023.

[00:13:35]When we learned of the uh potential transfer of patients from the Canary Islands, all 13 bioontainment units across the country coordinated by NET responded with readiness postures, preparedness and all of us were ready to receive a patient at notice. Emory was fortunate to be the one called upon today to receive these two individuals and we can say very securely that our system worked, our preparedness worked and most importantly my teammates performed very very well.

[00:14:09]Um at this point I will turn it over to my colleague from the CDC David Fitter to give additional comments.

[00:14:23]Excellent. Thank you all. Um, and good evening. Um, my name is David Fitter.

[00:14:28]I'm a physician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I'm the incident manager of the antivirus response. Uh, I also serve as the director of the division of global migration health at CDC.

[00:14:40]I want to start by saying we understand that this is an uncertain and stressful time for the passengers. They've gone through quite a bit uh and we're trying to help them and this is a priority for us but the priority big priorities for us are the safe and healthy return of the passengers but also safe and healthy American communities and this is what we're working towards as Dr. uh sorry as for as Dr. Ma said it's the coordination that we have put together that has been so important with this. We are prepared to do this and we are working in both the federal, the state, the local level and also with private partners to move forward to be and to ensure that we're protecting the Americans but we are also assisting the passengers that have gone through uh this time.

[00:15:29]CDC is next door. This is helpful for the relationship with Emery. It is a fantastic facility and we're able to work very closely with them as we are able to move quickly through this very dynamic and evolving situation.

[00:15:43]What I also want to say is henta virus is a known virus. It is a known pathogen and that helps us. We know what we're doing and we know how we're responding.

[00:15:54]The system worked. We moved quickly. We identified the passengers. We identified a way to get them back. This is a coordination across the federal government with department of state with ASPER with DHS but more importantly this is across state and local health authorities as well as the hospitals like Emory.

[00:16:18]I'll say it again. I really want to get this across. The safety and health of the passengers and the safety and health of the American communities is primary to us.

[00:16:31]What have we been doing? As soon as we heard about this, we reached out to colleagues. We've been in contact with the World Health Organization. We've been in contact with the other countries that have been involved with this outbreak to ensure that we were coordinated in our approach, that we understood the situation and we were able to assist the people on the ship.

[00:16:50]We had a team that we sent out to the Canary Islands to greet the passengers as soon as they came off the ship. And this was in coordination with the State Department, with the government of Spain, with WHO, and with a lot of international partners.

[00:17:03]We were then able to help get the passengers onto the plane to help bring them back to the United States. And we did that. That was a success. We were able to bring them back. As Dr. Mete said, we were working. We did an initial assessment. There was someone that was found to have some symptoms that were consistent with habirus, but these are very broad symptoms and we wanted to do a very conservative effort and that's why we wanted to make sure that we brought them back and tested them appropriately here in the United States.

[00:17:34]We will be here. We will continue to communicate about what's going on and we appreciate everybody all the questions that are coming in. We want to make sure that they are answered.

[00:17:44]And now what's the next step? We want to make sure that we're doing the approach with the passengers. We want to make sure that we're doing the approach with the jurisdictions as well. So, we're assessing them. We are also coordinating with between the passengers and the jurisdictions about what the next steps will be.

[00:18:03]In the same time, we want to make sure that we're sharing information with the jurisdictions and also with the American public about what's going on to the individ individuals that return today and their families. We are focused on delivering safe, respectful care and transparent communication to the American public. We want to know we want you to know that we are here to protect your health and to ensure American communities remain healthy and safe.

[00:18:34]I do want to reiterate this point. The system worked. We have prepared for this and we were activating that. We activated the system and we did it quickly, responsibly and successfully.

[00:18:46]So, thank you very much.

[00:18:54]>> So, we'll take a couple of questions if anybody has any.

[00:18:57]>> Yes.

[00:19:01]what's the condition of those patients?

[00:19:04]>> So, at this time, we're not going to discuss any specifics on any of our patients. This is um in general how we protect the privacy of these individuals, but um these individuals are under the care of our team and are um we're confident in our ability to care for them.

[00:19:32]So whenever we admit patients to the hospital that uh have returned and potentially have a communicable disease, we need to make sure that we are initiating care in a safe way. And if it's a serious communicable diseases such as haunt virus, we need to make sure that our staff are using the appropriate protective measures to keep them safe while being able to effectively deliver the care. This is what uh teams like the Emory serious communicable diseases team have trained for for many years. We also need to make sure that we don't focus just on this potential serious communicable diseases.

[00:20:07]Our patients may have other uh infections that we need to make sure we recognize and treat and also have maybe other medical conditions that we need to make sure that we support. So, we need to integrate all of those factors into our care model, but also making sure that we do it in a way that keeps our health care and our community safe.

[00:20:36]>> Um, I will not discuss any specifics about the patients that we have here at Emory. I will defer to public health colleagues to comment on positivity or negativity in the case counts around the world and in the United States. My last question was done.

[00:21:07]>> So as I said this is a known pathogen and we know what we need to do in this space and one of the approaches that we're taking is a more conservative approach around this. And so as they were uh when they were initially on the ship, the pa the passengers were asked to be in their rooms during this period of time when they went to the Canary Islands. When they disembarked on the ship there, then they were able we were able to move them uh with Department of State and others to the plane that took them here. They were spaced accordingly during that time. But I really want to reassure you that save for the two that we discussed, those patients were passengers, excuse me, were asymptomatic. This is a virus that transmits when somebody is symptomatic.

[00:21:48]This is something that is known about the virus.

[00:21:56]>> Correct. The patients, sorry, the passengers that um HHS asked us to receive here at Emory University in our search communicable diseases unit. One was symptomatic uh when uh assessed uh when leaving the Canary Islands. The other one was a close contact of that individual who was not symptomatic at >> the care that these two individuals receive is the same care that we deliver to every patient at every university hospital every single day and that is a patient and family centered model of care. So when um and I had the great pleasure of listening to my colleague uh do the initial assessment of these two individuals and we um as we do with everyone, we take a very thorough history, understand all their previous medical history and their current symptoms and make sure that we do an assessment of each one of those symptoms if they're having them and make sure that we create a plan to alleviate them of those. That's what happened today. We did a very thorough assessment. We provided them any medications that they needed and we did appropriate laboratory testing to make sure they were we were supporting as best we could their body's physiology.

[00:23:32]>> Yes. And and so I I was trying to get at this but trying to be judicious with my time as well. But I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that what we're looking at right now is monitoring with modified activities. And so what that's looking you we want to make sure with modified activities that people are staying sort of by themselves uh at home. We're working with the jurisdictions and also with you know federal government but with the passengers as well to make sure that they are comfortable with the plan and the modified activities is uh what we're looking at is to stay out of crowded venues um to also avoid crowded spaces uh if they need to go out for essential activities to ensure that they are appropriately wearing any protective equipment uh with that and this is again truly to be a very conservative approach I do want to reiterate, we know this virus, we know how it acts and this has worked uh well in the past to ensure that there is no further spread.

[00:24:38]>> Certainly. Certainly. I think again I'm sort of going to get at the conservative approach of this. When we noticed that someone had symptoms, we wanted to make sure that we were doing the best possible for that person. They are still a passenger. They just happen to have symptoms compatible with hunter virus.

[00:24:53]But those are very broad symptoms like the common cold. But we're being judicious about our approach. And so this period of time right now is more about the assessment phase to ensure that we understand very well how they're doing and understanding a little bit more about the epidemiology. See what happened where where they were. But mainly it's to work this coordination phase with the passengers and also with the jurisdictions as well to ensure that we have a good plan that is in place for both.

[00:25:32]So um the patients um the asymptomatic patient is in the eary serious communical diseases unit which is the same unit where we take took care of patients with Ebola and we've taken care of other ser serious communical diseases in the past. We are able to deliver in those rooms every level of care that we can deliver anywhere else in the hospital. It has the additional um controls um and engineering controls, physical controls and trained staff.

[00:26:02]That's the most important thing. Our highly trained team that is able to make sure that we care for patients with serious communicable diseases without further exposure to healthcare staff or anyone else.

[00:26:32]I understand there's a lot happening lately and that's why I really want to go back to the known aspect of this pathogen. It is not a novel pathogen. It is very difficult to spread. This is a different strain. So we have h virus in the United States. It is a different strain of that and this haunt virus the Andes virus is one of is the only strain that is personto person but again very difficult to spread is close contact uh with bodily secretions or respiration sharing things intimately toothbrush etc and so this is very different than a respiratory virus and that's what I really would like to get across and and I appreciate that we want people to understand we know this virus it's not novel and we know what we need to All right. Thank you guys. We appreciate you all coming today.

[00:27:23]>> Thank you.

[00:27:28]>> Yeah. Thank you so much for everything.