Is hantavirus the next COVID? WHO director-general flags key pointers

News about a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship has stirred up plenty of unease, with quarantined passengers, urgent evacuations, and international alerts bringing back unsettling memories of the early days of COVID-19. As countries rushed to track down passengers scattered across the globe and health officials scrambled to contain the outbreak in Spain’s Canary Islands, it’s no wonder people started asking: Are we staring down another pandemic?

So far, this outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged expedition vessel has already led to several deaths and confirmed hantavirus infections, all connected to the Andes strain, which is a rare type that can actually spread (though only a little) from person to person. That’s triggered quarantines in places like the US, Spain, France, and the Netherlands, and the World Health Organization has stepped in to help governments keep tabs on everyone who left the ship.

Even with all the dramatic headlines and obvious echoes of COVID, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has made his stance clear: “This is not another COVID-19.” Talking to CBS News, he stressed that there’s no reason for the general public to panic.

“No, this is not another COVID,” Tedros told CBS News flat out. He also laid out three big differences between this hantavirus situation and the coronavirus pandemic that brought the world to a standstill in 2020. These differences, he says, are why experts aren’t panicking, even if they are being careful.

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Asked what he’d say to worried Americans, Tedros responded, “Based on scientific assessment and based on evidence ... the risk is low. So they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t worry.”

So far, there have been around 10 confirmed or suspected cases tied to the MV Hondius, including three deaths. Eighteen American passengers who recently got back to the US are being watched in specialized medical units just to be safe.

Let’s take a look at how experts say hantavirus differs from COVID.

Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease expert talking to CBS News, compared COVID to a wildfire with dry forests, high winds, and a tiny spark that turns into an unstoppable blaze. Hantavirus, she said, is more like “a wet log in a stone fireplace.” Sure, it might smolder for a bit, but it isn’t likely to catch and rage out of control.

COVID was a brand new virus, and no one knew how to handle it. Hantavirus, on the other hand, isn’t new; scientists have been studying it for decades. They have a much clearer sense of how it spreads and behaves.

“It’s just not infectious in the same way COVID was, or is,” Gounder said. “The incubation periods are different, and that helps us contain it.”

She added that hantavirus tends to infect deep inside the lungs, instead of the upper respiratory tract, making it a lot harder to cough or breathe out enough virus to put others at risk.

Hantavirus is rare, and most of the time, people get it from rodents in dry climates, not each other. The Andes virus from this cruise ship is pretty much the only one known to spread between people, and even then, it’s tough to transmit.

It showed up in South American areas visited by a Dutch couple before they boarded the ship in Argentina. The husband got sick first and died weeks before his wife did.

“This is not COVID. This is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness chief, said at a recent press briefing, per CBS News.

“I want to be unequivocal here,” she said. “This is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic. This is an outbreak on a ship. This is a confined area.”

COVID could spread through the air, but hantavirus needs “prolonged” physical contact to move between people, she said. The CDC echoed this, too, stressing that the risk of a pandemic from this outbreak and the threat to Americans remains extremely low.

Most cases happen when people spend extended close time together, share physical contact, or come in contact with an infected person’s saliva or bodily fluids, not just from passing by in a hallway.

Ex-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb summed it up on “Face the Nation”: Hantavirus “is not going to spread like a pandemic virus, like COVID,” since it’s far less efficient at moving from person to person.

Admiral Brian Christine from the Department of Health and Human Services drove the point home at a Monday briefing in Nebraska: “Let me be crystal clear: The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low. The Andes variant does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged, close contact with someone who’s already sick. Even so, we’ve taken this situation very seriously from day one.”

Health officials also point out that the Andes virus takes longer to show itself, so you’re looking at anywhere from two to six weeks before symptoms appear after exposure. In practice, that gives health teams more time to react, unlike COVID-19, which moved fast due to a much shorter incubation period.

“The good news here is, because of that long incubation period, that gave us more time,” Gounder added.

Most people exposed during this cruise ship outbreak are now nearing the end of the period when they could get sick, with no huge surge in cases reported.

Sure, any outbreak deserves serious attention. However, this hantavirus situation is nothing like the wildfire that was COVID. For most people, the risk is very low, and experts aren’t losing sleep over a new pandemic starting from this.