CDC Acting Director Defends Hantavirus Response on Cruise Ship Outbreak

WASHINGTON — Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, defended the federal response to a deadly hantavirus outbreak. He said it does not make sense to sound "a five-alarm fire bell" because the risk to the public remains "much, much lower" than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's very different than COVID, and we should treat it differently than COVID," Bhattacharya told CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil on Monday. He addressed the lack of daily briefings on the outbreak.

Bhattacharya, who also leads the National Institutes of Health, noted that hantavirus proves "a more deadly disease if you get it." But he added that the "epidemiological risk is very, very different" from COVID.

"Unlike COVID, the way that people get it from person to person is much, much more difficult for that to happen," he said.

The outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, which sailed the Atlantic Ocean, has caused at least three deaths and 10 confirmed or suspected cases of the rare rodent-borne illness.

Eighteen American passengers returned to the U.S. on Monday. They are under monitoring at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.

Health officials identified the outbreak as the Andes strain of hantavirus. That variant can spread between people but requires prolonged close contact with someone who is ill.

Bhattacharya said the U.S. has tracked the outbreak for several weeks. The CDC is working with state and local health departments, the World Health Organization, and foreign governments on the response.

On public communication, he said the CDC aims to avoid unnecessary panic. "The key thing is that we should be keeping the public aware of when there's actually threats to them, not causing the public to panic, not speculating about things that haven't happened, or potentially could in some universe happen," he said. "And being very, very clear about what we know and don't know, and also by responding appropriately when there is a risk, just as we've done."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Trump administration this week. He targeted last year's cuts to the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program, which handles cruise ship outbreak investigations and health inspections. The New York Democrat called the move "incompetence."

"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," Schumer said in a Sunday statement. "This White House will tell you the risk to Americans is low. How do they know? They have made it impossible to find out."

Bhattacharya told CBS News that he has seen "no gap at all in the group that manages outbreaks" during his two and a half months leading the CDC. He said the inspection team has done an "incredible job."

Bhattacharya added that the U.S. stands ready for potential disease outbreaks at the upcoming World Cup. That event will take place in June and July, hosted jointly by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

"Of course, any time so many people are traveling, there's always the possibility of various outbreaks or whatnot to happen," he said. "But the risk is not any different than it is in other World Cups that we've managed properly. And the United States has systems in place to make sure that if something happens that we respond appropriately."