Doctors discuss the cruise hantavirus outbreak

0:00 So for more, let's bring in CBS News medical correspondent, Dr.

0:02 Selene Gounder.

0:03 She's also editor at large for public health at KFFF Health News.

0:06 So doctor, remind us what hto virus is and why it can be dangerous.

0:11 So people usually get haunt virus from rodents as we

0:14 heard uh if they're cleaning up maybe rat droppings,

0:17 mouse droppings in the garage or the basement.

0:20 Um by doing so, you might be sweeping, vacuuming,

0:23 you kick that up and aerosolize it into the air

0:25 and that's how you end up breathing it in.

0:27 Uh this is not usually something that is transmitted personto person.

0:32 Although this particular outbreak we are concerned because

0:35 the one situation in which there has been persontoperson transmission

0:39 of haunt virus involves a form of uh haunt virus

0:42 the Andes virus that is transmitted in Argentina and Chile.

0:46 And remember this ship okay

0:48 was coming from Argentina.

0:50 So one theory is that this just was being transmitted by rodents

0:54 and their droppings or or aeros aerosolized

0:57 urine but another possibility is also persontoperson transmission.

1:01 What are the symptoms?

1:02 Um so as Tom was describing so uh people can develop lung failure,

1:06 heart failure, kidney failure.

1:08 Um a very severe viral pneumonia is very often how this manifests.

1:13 So people are watching they might have a cruise coming up

1:16 and we live in a city where there are mice and rats everywhere.

1:19 Are people who want to go on a cruise

1:21 or you and I at risk for exposure to haunt virus?

1:24 Well, I I want to emphasize first of all,

1:26 this is not going to be the next pandemic.

1:28 I know a lot of people are still

1:29 traumatized from the experience we went through with COVID.

1:32 Uh even if it is the airborne uh form

1:35 of this, the form that's transmitted person to person,

1:37 it's not airborne in the way that CO is,

1:40 it it really does require a very uh prolonged close contact with somebody else.

1:45 Um, we we um do recommend that people um if you are going to be

1:51 cleaning up rat droppings or other kinds

1:53 of things like that that you use gloves, that you use a respirator,

1:57 that you use uh watered down bleach so

1:59 that you're not kicking it up into the air.

2:01 But th this is a geographically um localized kind of infection.

2:07 In the United States, we do see haunt virus uh fewer than 900 cases in the past

2:11 30 years and largely uh localized in the four corners area.

2:15 Anything else you think we should take away from this?

2:18 Um just be careful, you know, when you're um dealing with any kind

2:22 of wild animal um bodily fluids, wastes in general.

2:27 I think that's a good piece of advice.

2:28 But do I think we're going to have a haunt

2:30 virus outbreak here in New York City despite all the rats?

2:33 No.

2:33 Okay.

2:34 Good check.

2:34 Dr.

2:35 Sling Goundonder.

2:35 Thank you.

2:37 Well, at least five US states are

2:38 now monitoring passengers who were on that cruise

2:41 ship in the center of the deadly hivirus

2:43 outbreak and those passengers have since returned home,

2:47 but 150 others are still on board

2:49 as the ship makes its way towards Spain's Canary Islands.

2:53 Joining me now is Dr.

2:54 Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at UCSF.

2:59 Dr.

2:59 Grandi, great Gandhi, great to be with you.

3:02 The World Health Organization was adamant this is not co but I got to admit

3:07 a lot of us have a little PTSD because it's following a similar story.

3:11 We've seen this movement before.

3:13 It all started with a cruise ship.

3:15 Explain why haunt virus is not co.

3:19 Okay.

3:19 Havirus is definitely not co.

3:21 So um essentially CO is very readily spread by respiratory droplets.

3:26 It's a highly contagious infection.

3:28 Ponttovirus is a what's called RNA virus that cause that is really

3:33 from usually exposure to rodents like rats um that can by the way hide

3:38 out in a cruise ship and there are droppings around no one noticed

3:42 it um urine and that's usually the main risk of exposure is from rats.

3:48 Now what's happened in this particular cruise ship is it's true there were there

3:52 were three passengers unfortunately who got haunt

3:55 virus and have died as a result.

3:57 There are eight with a likely haunt virus and they were from all over.

4:02 One is in Switzerland.

4:03 But importantly, you need very close human

4:07 to human contact to get it from a human.

4:10 Now, usually it's spread from rats, but there is a strain called the Andes

4:14 strain that can be passed with close contact

4:16 from human to human and it does look

4:18 like this particular haunt strain is the Andy strain.

4:22 Is there any concern though Dr.

4:24 Gandhi that this strain could evolve much like

4:27 we saw with other viruses and become even more

4:30 contagious that maybe you don't have to have super

4:32 close contact with an individual to pass it on.

4:35 Is there some concern it could mutate?

4:38 Likely not.

4:39 So the way that we think of respiratory viruses,

4:42 influenza of course that caused the 1918 pandemic,

4:45 corona virus, we've all become super familiar that that's

4:48 what caused the SARS KV2 or COVID outbreak.

4:51 But hont virus is actually a virus that causes

4:55 pulmonary symptoms but it often causes kidney symptoms.

4:59 It gets into the bloodstream and by getting

5:02 into the bloodstream unfortunately causes what's called hemorrhagic fever.

5:06 It has a long incubation period.

5:08 You can get very sick fevers, chills, really severe pulmonary symptoms.

5:12 That's likely what unfortunately led to the deaths

5:15 in these three individuals and shock.

5:17 It's really different than corona virus which is mainly a respiratory infection.

5:22 So we do not never seen an example of this kind of animal spread uh rat

5:28 virus really from rats and rodents um going

5:31 into some sort of epidemic or pandemic potential.

5:35 The main thing is that cruise ships need to clean their ships.

5:38 Okay.

5:39 Well, interesting you say that because passengers have been let off the ship.

5:43 Given that they believe this virus

5:44 is potentially spreading between close contact,

5:47 does that concern you that these passengers were let off to go home?

5:53 Yes,

5:52 that concerns me because I've been thinking about kind of breakdown in public

5:56 health lately um you know with TB outbreaks and with Legionel outbreaks.

6:01 I I don't think we're in the best place with our public health selves.

6:04 And what I mean by that is hto virus is such a serious

6:07 infection that the minute this was understood that there's habirus on the ship,

6:13 you really want to isolate the ship.

6:15 You want to make sure that everyone is tested before they get off.

6:19 You can test by antibodies or you can even do

6:21 a PCR test sequence the blood before they get off the ship.

6:26 Remember the Princess Cruise what you just referred

6:28 to with COVID people did not get off that ship.

6:31 There was massive isolation and quarantine.

6:34 if there was exposure.

6:35 The word quarantine comes from 40 days a ship

6:38 had to be waiting out in the Italy uh

6:41 port before it could come in because you need

6:42 a long period to make sure people don't get sick.

6:45 So, yes, I think there should have been better

6:47 contact tracing and not allowing people to kind of disperse.

6:51 Now, they're trying to track everyone down.

6:53 That's right.

6:53 And the the various health departments have basically said to these individuals,

6:57 you know, keep monitoring us, but call us when you start to have symptoms.

7:01 So you said it's a long incubation period.

7:04 Are you contagious during that whole time or are

7:07 you only contagious once you start having symptoms?

7:11 So that's a very good question.

7:13 So the incubation period can be up to 20

7:15 days and the first 10 days after you've been exposed,

7:18 you can be contagious before you get symptoms and right after you get symptoms.

7:23 So you're right that you may not know.

7:25 Now again though, the difference is it's close humanto human contact.

7:30 As long as someone's isolated from other people in the home,

7:33 which everyone should do if they were on the cruise ship,

7:36 um they're not going to spread it in the air,

7:38 spread it through the air conditioning, you know, have it go all over the house.

7:41 It's really close human to human contact.

7:43 And it's also pretty hard to get from human to human.

7:46 That's why it's not going to be the pandemic potential.

7:49 But we got to track down everyone that was on this cruise ship.

7:52 Absolutely.

7:53 the minute they have symptoms, test them.

7:56 And in an ideal world,

7:57 they wouldn't have been allowed off the cruise

7:59 ship unless we had tested all of them.

8:01 Do we have the capability though to really track individuals?

8:05 Is this what we did when Corona virus first came out?

8:08 I mean, all these different countries and states,

8:11 they have different rules when it comes to access to medical information, right?

8:15 Yes.

8:16 I mean, I think one tragedy that I have to mention now is that the US

8:20 withdrew from the World Health Organization the day

8:23 this administration took office on January 20th, 2025.

8:27 It is a complete tragedy because

8:30 the WHO is very important for epidemic surveillance.

8:34 They are the ones that put together all the data

8:36 from different countries and tell us what's going on.

8:38 WHO is leading this response.

8:40 So, we should be in the WHO.

8:42 I need to make that comment.

8:43 And second is in this particular case,

8:46 everyone who is on that ship knows they were on that ship.

8:49 Everyone has been contacted.

8:50 They are going to be alerted and watched for symptoms.

8:54 And I think we're going to be able to contain this out in the world,

8:58 but it would have been better if we had contained it in the ship.

9:01 And again, um this is probably a breakdown that they

9:04 should have uh not let people off the ship.

9:07 There's a lot of anxiety though now

9:09 and not knowing who to believe, who to trust.

9:12 If somebody is having that anxiety and maybe lives in one of these states,

9:15 maybe knows somebody that was on that ship

9:17 and they want to get the best information,

9:19 are you saying the best way to get that is really from the WHO?

9:23 The WHO actually has a very good um updated information about Hunto,

9:28 but to give credit, so does the CDC,

9:30 and the CDC is also closely involved with the US-based uh people

9:35 who are on the ship because the CDC is our public health response.

9:39 Now the CDC can't follow everything they're supposed

9:41 to be doing because they've also had cuts to them,

9:44 but they are being very aggressive about the haunt virus

9:46 case reporting and watching everyone who is on that ship.

9:50 So I feel pretty comfortable that everyone's

9:52 been alerted and that they are sitting

9:55 not going around anyone and ensuring that they

9:57 don't get sick within the incubation period.

9:59 We know there's been so many cuts statewide,

10:01 nationwide to to health organizations.

10:04 I'm curious though, were there lessons learned during CO that makes

10:08 those departments more equipped to handle

10:11 a potential other epidemic or pandemic?

10:15 Yes.

10:15 I mean, I think actually what we learned during COVID is we

10:18 didn't have the test capability right away with CO and it took

10:22 us a long time to get tests and people couldn't get access

10:24 to tests and we're pretty much saying like everyone stay in their houses.

10:28 This is different.

10:29 We immediately when this haunt virus cruise ship

10:32 because of its international potential the tests are available.

10:36 It's actually a very easy antibbody um and if need be if someone's sick

10:41 we can we can get a test from the CDC to look at PCR.

10:44 So the tests are available.

10:46 They could contact everyone on the ship.

10:48 People are all sitting at home.

10:50 They should be um and not going out until we can ensure that they

10:53 don't have symptoms within the period

10:55 and they're being informed about what to do.

10:57 So, I feel comfortable about this particular public health response,

11:00 but everything that you just said is true.

11:02 The massive cuts to public health in this country

11:05 and worldwide is going to cause the anxiety about new pandemics,

11:10 and we need to not cut public health.

11:13 It's too important.

11:14 Dr.

11:15 Gandhi, great to see you.

11:16 Thanks so much.

11:19 Returning now to our stop top story.

11:21 Five US states are tracking passengers returning from a cruise

11:24 ship hit with a deadly outbreak of haunt virus.

11:28 For more, let's bring in CBS News chief medical correspondent, Dr.

11:31 John Leuk.

11:32 And doctor, another physician actually came up to you today and said,

11:36 "Do we need to be worried about this?" I mean, what did you say?

11:39 Yeah, just this morning.

11:40 And you know, this is somebody with a lot of knowledge.

11:42 And so what it said to me is, you know, people are worried about this.

11:45 And and I think when they hear

11:46 the World Health Organization uh today say, "Well,

11:49 the risk to the general public is low."

11:50 It's it's kind of triggering because they're thinking,

11:52 well, is this going to, you know, is this going to be another pandemic?

11:55 Is this going to be just like COVID?

11:57 And and there's a big difference.

11:59 What I told her was, no, you don't have to be worried in general about flying.

12:03 Remember that with with the pandemic,

12:06 COVID was caused by a virus we had never seen before, right?

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

12:10 This is a virus that we've known for 30 years.

12:13 We do know how it's spread.

12:14 when it is spread it's generally you know you get it

12:16 from rodents from droppings of saliva uh from urine and you inhale

12:21 it however occasionally and really not that often it can go

12:24 from person to person and it generally has to be pretty close contact

12:28 okay so um that's that's this strain we're talking about right

12:33 it's one of dozens of strain there are dozens of strains of of haunt

12:35 virus there's only one that has been shown to go from person to person

12:39 how do you define close contact

12:41 you know what the CDC you really asked a good question.

12:44 The CDC is going to be coming out with guidance about that.

12:47 Um because when you think about a a cruise ship um that's generally sort

12:52 of like a a little bit of I don't want to call it a petri dish,

12:55 but it's sort of a lab experiment for close contact, right?

12:58 I know there's a whole business there.

12:59 I'm not trying to like tear that down,

13:01 but it is a place where people are generally interacting with each other.

13:04 We know that the the index case, you know,

13:06 was was a man who then infected probably infected his wife,

13:10 you know, uh sadly they both died.

13:12 you're you know you're in close contact with people.

13:15 The question is in is is what is close

13:18 contact and generally it has to be sexual contact

13:20 or people who are very close with each other

13:22 and not generally sort of people across the room.

13:26 We remember with COVID we found out that if you're in a a room

13:29 we initially said five five feet if you're in a room

13:32 that's not well ventilated uh it can the virus can sort

13:35 of aerosolize and and go across the room like cigarette smoke can.

13:39 So if you know if you're in a room

13:40 with 20 feet away somebody smoky can smell it.

13:43 That is not felt to be the case here.

13:45 But we always have to have an asteris here.

13:47 We're at the beginning of this.

13:48 You have to have humility.

13:49 We can we going to always end by saying this is what we

13:52 know now and um if something changes we're going to let people know.

13:56 Is are there any cases not associated with the cruise ship?

14:00 Not right now.

14:01 No.

14:01 Okay.

14:01 They're all associated with the cruise ship.

14:04 um that uh oh I take well yes associated indirectly so there were people

14:10 who were passengers on a plane where the person who was on the cruise

14:13 who got sick subsequently you know developed

14:15 full-blown disease and now the the question

14:17 is were they close enough on the plane to get infected so yes it's not

14:22 directly from the cruise ship but I I just should say for the general

14:25 public the risk right now is felt to be low you had to have been

14:28 sort of been part of that you know in that bunch of people who

14:32 were sort of either directly or indirectly

14:34 related to what happened on the cruise ship.

14:36 And it's a great example of why you have to have cooperation between,

14:40 you know, the World Health Organization,

14:42 the CDC, our own state departments involved,

14:45 local health departments are involved because

14:46 you're trying to interrupt the the chain

14:49 of transmission and that means like a lot of boots on the ground,

14:52 you know, finding out, you know, who went where, when did they go,

14:54 you have a long incubation period of six weeks around.

14:57 So that means somebody could have gotten infected on the ship

15:00 and then left the ship and now they're somewhere else.

15:03 you don't know where they are, how long within the next day,

15:05 I'm told by a source that knows of things that's

15:08 going on at the CDC that within the next day,

15:10 you're going to see public guidance on when

15:11 somebody has been uh sort of a contact, not not that they that they have it,

15:16 for sure they're a contact, what should they do?

15:18 So stay tuned for that.

15:19 Looking out for that.

15:20 Thank you, Dr.

15:20 John Leoo.

15:21 Appreciate your time.