Doctors discuss the cruise hantavirus outbreak

Añadido: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]So for more, let's bring in CBS News medical correspondent, Dr. Selene Gounder. She's also editor at large for public health at KFFF Health News. So doctor, remind us what hto virus is and why it can be dangerous. So people usually get haunt virus from rodents as we heard uh if they're cleaning up maybe rat droppings, mouse droppings in the garage or the basement. Um by doing so, you might be sweeping, vacuuming, you kick that up and aerosolize it into the air and that's how you end up breathing it in. Uh this is not usually something that is transmitted personto person.

[00:00:32]Although this particular outbreak we are concerned because the one situation in which there has been persontoperson transmission of haunt virus involves a form of uh haunt virus the Andes virus that is transmitted in Argentina and Chile. And remember this ship >> okay >> was coming from Argentina. So one theory is that this just was being transmitted by rodents and their droppings or or aeros aerosolized urine but another possibility is also persontoperson transmission.

[00:01:01]>> What are the symptoms?

[00:01:02]>> Um so as Tom was describing so uh people can develop lung failure, heart failure, kidney failure. Um a very severe viral pneumonia is very often how this manifests.

[00:01:13]>> So people are watching they might have a cruise coming up and we live in a city where there are mice and rats everywhere. Are people who want to go on a cruise or you and I at risk for exposure to haunt virus?

[00:01:24]>> Well, I I want to emphasize first of all, this is not going to be the next pandemic. I know a lot of people are still traumatized from the experience we went through with COVID. Uh even if it is the airborne uh form of this, the form that's transmitted person to person, it's not airborne in the way that CO is, it it really does require a very uh prolonged close contact with somebody else. Um, we we um do recommend that people um if you are going to be cleaning up rat droppings or other kinds of things like that that you use gloves, that you use a respirator, that you use uh watered down bleach so that you're not kicking it up into the air. But th this is a geographically um localized kind of infection. In the United States, we do see haunt virus uh fewer than 900 cases in the past 30 years and largely uh localized in the four corners area.

[00:02:15]>> Anything else you think we should take away from this?

[00:02:17]>> Um just be careful, you know, when you're um dealing with any kind of wild animal um bodily fluids, wastes in general. I think that's a good piece of advice. But do I think we're going to have a haunt virus outbreak here in New York City despite all the rats? No.

[00:02:33]Okay. Good check. Dr. Sling Goundonder.

[00:02:35]Thank you.

[00:02:37]>> Well, at least five US states are now monitoring passengers who were on that cruise ship in the center of the deadly hivirus outbreak and those passengers have since returned home, but 150 others are still on board as the ship makes its way towards Spain's Canary Islands.

[00:02:53]Joining me now is Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at UCSF. Dr. Grandi, great Gandhi, great to be with you. The World Health Organization was adamant this is not co but I got to admit a lot of us have a little PTSD because it's following a similar story. We've seen this movement before. It all started with a cruise ship. Explain why haunt virus is not co.

[00:03:19]>> Okay. Havirus is definitely not co. So um essentially CO is very readily spread by respiratory droplets. It's a highly contagious infection. Ponttovirus is a what's called RNA virus that cause that is really from usually exposure to rodents like rats um that can by the way hide out in a cruise ship and there are droppings around no one noticed it um urine and that's usually the main risk of exposure is from rats. Now what's happened in this particular cruise ship is it's true there were there were three passengers unfortunately who got haunt virus and have died as a result. There are eight with a likely haunt virus and they were from all over. One is in Switzerland. But importantly, you need very close human to human contact to get it from a human. Now, usually it's spread from rats, but there is a strain called the Andes strain that can be passed with close contact from human to human and it does look like this particular haunt strain is the Andy strain.

[00:04:22]>> Is there any concern though Dr. Gandhi that this strain could evolve much like we saw with other viruses and become even more contagious that maybe you don't have to have super close contact with an individual to pass it on. Is there some concern it could mutate?

[00:04:38]>> Likely not. So the way that we think of respiratory viruses, influenza of course that caused the 1918 pandemic, corona virus, we've all become super familiar that that's what caused the SARS KV2 or COVID outbreak. But hont virus is actually a virus that causes pulmonary symptoms but it often causes kidney symptoms. It gets into the bloodstream and by getting into the bloodstream unfortunately causes what's called hemorrhagic fever. It has a long incubation period. You can get very sick fevers, chills, really severe pulmonary symptoms. That's likely what unfortunately led to the deaths in these three individuals and shock. It's really different than corona virus which is mainly a respiratory infection. So we do not never seen an example of this kind of animal spread uh rat virus really from rats and rodents um going into some sort of epidemic or pandemic potential.

[00:05:35]>> The main thing is that cruise ships need to clean their ships.

[00:05:38]>> Okay. Well, interesting you say that because passengers have been let off the ship. Given that they believe this virus is potentially spreading between close contact, does that concern you that these passengers were let off to go home?

[00:05:51]>> Yes, >> that concerns me because I've been thinking about kind of breakdown in public health lately um you know with TB outbreaks and with Legionel outbreaks. I I don't think we're in the best place with our public health selves. And what I mean by that is hto virus is such a serious infection that the minute this was understood that there's habirus on the ship, you really want to isolate the ship. You want to make sure that everyone is tested before they get off.

[00:06:19]You can test by antibodies or you can even do a PCR test sequence the blood before they get off the ship. Remember the Princess Cruise what you just referred to with COVID people did not get off that ship. There was massive isolation and quarantine. if there was exposure. The word quarantine comes from 40 days a ship had to be waiting out in the Italy uh port before it could come in because you need a long period to make sure people don't get sick. So, yes, I think there should have been better contact tracing and not allowing people to kind of disperse. Now, they're trying to track everyone down.

[00:06:53]>> That's right. And the the various health departments have basically said to these individuals, you know, keep monitoring us, but call us when you start to have symptoms. So you said it's a long incubation period. Are you contagious during that whole time or are you only contagious once you start having symptoms?

[00:07:11]>> So that's a very good question. So the incubation period can be up to 20 days and the first 10 days after you've been exposed, you can be contagious before you get symptoms and right after you get symptoms. So you're right that you may not know. Now again though, the difference is it's close humanto human contact. As long as someone's isolated from other people in the home, which everyone should do if they were on the cruise ship, um they're not going to spread it in the air, spread it through the air conditioning, you know, have it go all over the house. It's really close human to human contact. And it's also pretty hard to get from human to human.

[00:07:46]That's why it's not going to be the pandemic potential. But we got to track down everyone that was on this cruise ship. Absolutely. the minute they have symptoms, test them. And in an ideal world, they wouldn't have been allowed off the cruise ship unless we had tested all of them.

[00:08:01]>> Do we have the capability though to really track individuals? Is this what we did when Corona virus first came out?

[00:08:08]I mean, all these different countries and states, they have different rules when it comes to access to medical information, right?

[00:08:15]>> Yes. I mean, I think one tragedy that I have to mention now is that the US withdrew from the World Health Organization the day this administration took office on January 20th, 2025. It is a complete tragedy because the WHO is very important for epidemic surveillance. They are the ones that put together all the data from different countries and tell us what's going on.

[00:08:38]WHO is leading this response. So, we should be in the WHO. I need to make that comment. And second is in this particular case, everyone who is on that ship knows they were on that ship.

[00:08:49]Everyone has been contacted. They are going to be alerted and watched for symptoms. And I think we're going to be able to contain this out in the world, but it would have been better if we had contained it in the ship. And again, um this is probably a breakdown that they should have uh not let people off the ship.

[00:09:06]>> There's a lot of anxiety though now and not knowing who to believe, who to trust. If somebody is having that anxiety and maybe lives in one of these states, maybe knows somebody that was on that ship and they want to get the best information, are you saying the best way to get that is really from the WHO?

[00:09:23]>> The WHO actually has a very good um updated information about Hunto, but to give credit, so does the CDC, and the CDC is also closely involved with the US-based uh people who are on the ship because the CDC is our public health response. Now the CDC can't follow everything they're supposed to be doing because they've also had cuts to them, but they are being very aggressive about the haunt virus case reporting and watching everyone who is on that ship.

[00:09:50]So I feel pretty comfortable that everyone's been alerted and that they are sitting not going around anyone and ensuring that they don't get sick within the incubation period.

[00:09:59]>> We know there's been so many cuts statewide, nationwide to to health organizations. I'm curious though, were there lessons learned during CO that makes those departments more equipped to handle a potential other epidemic or pandemic?

[00:10:15]>> Yes. I mean, I think actually what we learned during COVID is we didn't have the test capability right away with CO and it took us a long time to get tests and people couldn't get access to tests and we're pretty much saying like everyone stay in their houses. This is different. We immediately when this haunt virus cruise ship because of its international potential the tests are available. It's actually a very easy antibbody um and if need be if someone's sick we can we can get a test from the CDC to look at PCR. So the tests are available. They could contact everyone on the ship. People are all sitting at home. They should be um and not going out until we can ensure that they don't have symptoms within the period and they're being informed about what to do.

[00:10:57]So, I feel comfortable about this particular public health response, but everything that you just said is true.

[00:11:02]The massive cuts to public health in this country and worldwide is going to cause the anxiety about new pandemics, and we need to not cut public health.

[00:11:13]It's too important.

[00:11:14]>> Dr. Gandhi, great to see you. Thanks so much.

[00:11:18]>> Returning now to our stop top story.

[00:11:21]Five US states are tracking passengers returning from a cruise ship hit with a deadly outbreak of haunt virus. For more, let's bring in CBS News chief medical correspondent, Dr. John Leuk.

[00:11:32]And doctor, another physician actually came up to you today and said, "Do we need to be worried about this?" I mean, what did you say?

[00:11:39]>> Yeah, just this morning. And you know, this is somebody with a lot of knowledge. And so what it said to me is, you know, people are worried about this.

[00:11:45]And and I think when they hear the World Health Organization uh today say, "Well, the risk to the general public is low."

[00:11:50]It's it's kind of triggering because they're thinking, well, is this going to, you know, is this going to be another pandemic? Is this going to be just like COVID? And and there's a big difference. What I told her was, no, you don't have to be worried in general about flying. Remember that with with the pandemic, COVID was caused by a virus we had never seen before, right?

[00:12:09]And we didn't know anything about it.

[00:12:10]This is a virus that we've known for 30 years. We do know how it's spread. when it is spread it's generally you know you get it from rodents from droppings of saliva uh from urine and you inhale it however occasionally and really not that often it can go from person to person and it generally has to be pretty close contact >> okay so um that's that's this strain we're talking about right >> it's one of dozens of strain there are dozens of strains of of haunt virus there's only one that has been shown to go from person to person >> how do you define close contact >> you know what the CDC you really asked a good question. The CDC is going to be coming out with guidance about that. Um because when you think about a a cruise ship um that's generally sort of like a a little bit of I don't want to call it a petri dish, but it's sort of a lab experiment for close contact, right? I know there's a whole business there. I'm not trying to like tear that down, but it is a place where people are generally interacting with each other. We know that the the index case, you know, was was a man who then infected probably infected his wife, you know, uh sadly they both died. you're you know you're in close contact with people. The question is in is is what is close contact and generally it has to be sexual contact or people who are very close with each other and not generally sort of people across the room. We remember with COVID we found out that if you're in a a room we initially said five five feet if you're in a room that's not well ventilated uh it can the virus can sort of aerosolize and and go across the room like cigarette smoke can. So if you know if you're in a room with 20 feet away somebody smoky can smell it. That is not felt to be the case here. But we always have to have an asteris here. We're at the beginning of this. You have to have humility. We can we going to always end by saying this is what we know now and um if something changes we're going to let people know.

[00:13:56]>> Is are there any cases not associated with the cruise ship?

[00:14:00]>> Not right now. No. Okay. They're all associated with the cruise ship. um that uh oh I take well yes associated indirectly so there were people who were passengers on a plane where the person who was on the cruise who got sick subsequently you know developed full-blown disease and now the the question is were they close enough on the plane to get infected so yes it's not directly from the cruise ship but I I just should say for the general public the risk right now is felt to be low you had to have been sort of been part of that you know in that bunch of people who were sort of either directly or indirectly related to what happened on the cruise ship. And it's a great example of why you have to have cooperation between, you know, the World Health Organization, the CDC, our own state departments involved, local health departments are involved because you're trying to interrupt the the chain of transmission and that means like a lot of boots on the ground, you know, finding out, you know, who went where, when did they go, you have a long incubation period of six weeks around.

[00:14:57]So that means somebody could have gotten infected on the ship and then left the ship and now they're somewhere else. you don't know where they are, how long within the next day, I'm told by a source that knows of things that's going on at the CDC that within the next day, you're going to see public guidance on when somebody has been uh sort of a contact, not not that they that they have it, for sure they're a contact, what should they do? So stay tuned for that.

[00:15:19]>> Looking out for that. Thank you, Dr. John Leoo. Appreciate your time.