90-Second Read: Hantavirus outbreak tests post-COVID health communications playbook

A Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship is reviving COVID-era anxiety online and testing how health officials communicate risk. With a deadly Hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius now confirmed across multiple countries and Americans evacuated to biocontainment facilities, health officials are issuing new guidance for US travelers. The cruise ship Hantavirus narrative has not helped, echoing the infamous outbreak on the Diamond Princess docked off Japan early in the COVID pandemic in 2020, where 14 people died and nearly a quarter of the 3,000 passengers and crew became infected. Personnel in hazmat suits walk near a plane carrying passengers evacuated from the cruise ship MV Hondius, which was affected by a Hantavirus outbreak, after it landed May 12 at Eindhoven Air Base in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Some posts online falsely present Hantavirus as a greater existential threat than COVID or promote protections like the anti-parasite drug ivermectin, vitamin D and zinc without scientific evidence. As of Thursday, there had been three deaths from 11 reported Hantavirus cases in the outbreak, all people who had been on board the Hondius. The current public health risk from Hantavirus remains low. During COVID, many governments were slow to react or in denial, public messaging was sometimes confusing and contradictory, restrictions and vaccine rollouts were applied differently around the world, and misinformation and politicization proliferated.

The CDC has specifically warned that the Andes strain of Hantavirus… LONDON, A rodent-borne virus with a scary name. That has presented a dilemma to health officials: how to communicate quickly and clearly about a virus that is not new and unlikely to cause a pandemic, but where knowledge gaps remain, without inadvertently fomenting fear. For example, faith in public health institutions declined in 20 of 27 EU countries between 2020 and 2022, one study showed. Unlike COVID, there are established measures to control the spread of Hantavirus, officials said.

The WHO was quick to reassure the public, holding regular press conferences, issuing alerts and tackling misinformation in social media Q&As since the outbreak was disclosed on May 3. Seeing WHO boss Tedros arrive on the island with Spanish officials to help oversee the Hantavirus response took her back. Dozens of other passengers are being monitored as they return to around 20 countries.