Acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya urged the public not to panic over the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship, underscoring that it’s not like COVID-19.
Bhattacharya, who also helms the National Institutes of Health (NIH), defended the CDC’s decision not to do contact tracing on the seven passengers who already flew back several weeks ago, and insisted the agency is following its protocols.
“I don’t want to cause a public panic,” Bhattacharya told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We want to treat it with our hantavirus protocols that were successful at containing outbreaks in the past.”
“The key message I want to send to your audience is that this is not COVID. This is not going to lead to the [same] kind of outbreak,” he added.
“We shouldn’t be panicking when the evidence doesn’t warrant it.”
Hantavirus, a disease commonly found in rodents, can cause nasty symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, lung issues, and more.
A staggering 38% of those who get respiratory symptoms die, per the CDC.
While hantavirus can spread from person to person, it requires close contact and is widely seen as much less contagious than the COVID-19 respiratory illness, experts say.
An outbreak took place on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which had about 150 people on board before it began disembarking over the weekend.
At least three passengers have died and five others were seriously ill with hantavirus symptoms since April 11, according to World Health Organization officials.
There are 17 American passengers aboard that ship.
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