Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press reported that as a hantavirus outbreak involving Americans unfolded on a cruise ship and drew international attention, a group of public-health experts said the CDC was unusually slow to show up with investigators, alerts, or clear public communication. Several experts told AP that they wondered, “Where is the CDC?” during the early stages of the incident, noting that unlike outbreaks such as COVID-19, measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. They said health authorities outside the United States had been handling much of the response during the past week.
AP reported that President Donald Trump described the situation as controlled when he told reporters Friday evening: “We seem to have things under very good control.” In contrast, experts said the American response had not escalated as quickly as it had in earlier public-health emergencies, and some pointed to a pattern of limited CDC involvement compared with the agency’s historic role in international investigations.
The CDC’s actions accelerated late Friday, AP said. Health officials confirmed the deployment of a CDC team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the ship was expected to arrive early Sunday local time, to meet Americans onboard. Officials also said a second team would travel to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska as part of a plan to evacuate American passengers from the ship to a University of Nebraska quarantine center for evaluation and monitoring, AP reported.
AP also reported that the CDC issued its first health alert to U.S. doctors advising them of the possibility of imported cases, and that CDC officials pledged during their first briefing on Saturday—held by telephone only for invited reporters—to be transparent in updating the public. Aides to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. limited the briefing by rule, AP reported, with officials saying the media could not cite the speakers by name. The officials did not directly answer a question about whether the American passengers could leave the university medical facility when they wanted.
Experts said the CDC’s reduced presence signaled an erosion of the agency’s ability to act as a domestic protector and an international partner. Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University, said, “The CDC is not even a player. I’ve never seen that before.” Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, described the incident as a “sentinel event” and said the outbreak reflects whether the country is prepared for a disease threat, adding, “And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” according to AP.
AP reported a timeline of how the outbreak unfolded. Early last month, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed a feverish illness on a cruise ship traveling from Argentina toward Antarctica and some islands in the South Atlantic, and he died less than a week later. The outbreak then expanded to include more cases, with the man’s wife and a German woman also reported to have become sick and died. Hantavirus was first identified as a cause of sickness of one of the cases on May 2, after which the World Health Organization moved into action and by Monday was calling it an outbreak.
AP said the WHO, rather than the CDC, appeared to lead the risk assessment, which shaped how people viewed the threat. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, said, “I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” and added that the way the situation had played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now,” according to the AP report. AP said the WHO’s risk assessment indicated the outbreak was not a pandemic threat.
The AP report tied the dispute over the CDC’s role to broader changes during the Trump administration’s time in office. It said the administration withdrew from the WHO, restricted CDC scientists from talking to international counterparts at times, and pursued a plan to build its own international public health network through one-on-one agreements with individual countries. AP reported that the administration laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program, and that Kennedy said he was working to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”
AP said the CDC had not been entirely silent on hantavirus. The agency issued a short statement on Wednesday saying the risk to the American public was “extremely low,” and described the U.S. government as “the world’s leader in global health security.” Nuzzo said that messaging was not helpful and that public-health communications require humility. AP also reported that the CDC’s acting director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, posted on social media that the agency was lending its expertise to coordinate with other federal agencies and international authorities, and said the CDC was monitoring the health status and preparing medical support for American passengers.
The AP report said federal health officials were mostly tight-lipped when asked for interviews, with the first on-camera appearance by a CDC official coming Saturday morning when Bhattacharya appeared on a Fox News program and told viewers, “My message to the American people is please don’t worry.” The report said Bhattacharya misstated details, including the age of people who had died, and overstated what was known about how they were infected. AP said Argentine health officials think it is possible the people were infected during a bird-watching outing, but it has not been established.
AP reported that some experts compared the situation with the 2020 Diamond Princess cruise-ship outbreak in Japan, saying the CDC then sent personnel to the port, helped evacuate American passengers, ran quarantines, shared genetic data, coordinated with the WHO and Japan, held public briefings, and rapidly published reports that became reference data. Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director, said, “The CDC was right on top of it, very visible, very active in trying to manage and contain it,” while the agency’s work now has been “delayed and subdued,” according to AP. Gostin said bilateral arrangements with individual nations were not enough to cover global crises.