Transcript - Update on CDC's Hantavirus Response 5/15/2026

Please Note: This transcript is not edited and may contain errors.

00:00:00 Operator

Welcome and thank you for standing by at this time all participants are on a listen only mode if you are credentialed member of the media would like to ask a question during the call press star one on your touch tone phone and record your name press star 2 to withdraw your question you may queue up at any time today's call is being recorded if you have any objections please disconnect at this time I will now turn the call over to Benjamin Haynes. Thank you again.

00:00:24 Benjamin Haynes, CDC Moderator

Thank you Ted and thank you all for joining us today for CDC's hantavirus response update. Yesterday we talked about the Americans under monitoring, and today we'd like to provide a bit more detail about what that monitoring looks like. Vefore we go to CDC 's hantavirus response lead, Dr. David Fitter, I'd first like to turn the call over to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

00:00:49 Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Senior Official Carrying out the Delegable Duties of the CDC Director

Thank you Ben, and good afternoon. Before we talk about the hantavirus outbreak, I want to let you know that the CDC is closely monitoring reports of an Ebola outbreak in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Much like hantavirus, CDC has extensive experience and expertise in responding to Ebola outbreaks, and we are working closely with the DRC Ministry of Health through our country office to support our response efforts.

This morning we also heard from the government of Uganda confirming an Ebola outbreak there, and we are also coordinating with our country office in Uganda and our colleagues there to track and help with the outbreak there.

As the US 's health protection agency, the CDC works 24/7 to protect Americans from health, safety and security threats wherever they originate at home or abroad. The CDC and its network has experts are major assets that stand between emerging health threats and their potential to become crises and spread to the United States.

While our teams actively support partners in DRC and Uganda, I want to turn now to the hantavirus outbreak.

We are applying the same rigor and resources to track and contain this outbreak and to protect the public here and abroad. I'll start by noting that there are no hantavirus cases in the United States currently, no hantavirus cases in the United States currently, and I'll emphasize that the risk to the general public remains extremely low.

So currently in the United States, there are no cases of the hantavirus that is causing this outbreak. I should be more specific, and as a reminder, the Andes virus is found throughout much of Argentina and Chile.

The CDC coordination with others in the federal government across state and local health departments is ongoing, and it won't stop until everyone potentially exposed is through their monitoring period, home and healthy, and every community can be confident that we've done everything in our power to protect them.

The secretary is getting daily detailed updates, as is the White House, and I participated in several of those. I can tell you firsthand they're both following this outbreak very, very closely. The health and safety of the US residents is our top priority, both the people who were potentially exposed and American communities.

Now I'll read it over to Dr. Fitter who's leading the response team on this outbreak.

00:03:05 David Fitter, MD, Incident Manager for CDC's hantavirus response

Excellent. Thank you very much, Dr. Bhattacharya, and good afternoon to everyone. I do want to provide an update on our ongoing response to the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship and outlined the monitoring guidance we have used to our public health partners; before that I do want to reemphasize with Dr. Bhattacharya said, and that is that there are no cases of hantavirus in the US.

As I've said, hantavirus is a well understood pathogen; the Andes virus, which is a strain of hantavirus causing this outbreak, is the only one only known hantavirus to spread person to person.

Please know that we have established response protocols, and we are executing them. I also want to note that other hantaviruses, particularly Sin Nombre Virus, naturally occur in the United States. Infections caused by these hantaviruses typically increase during the spring and summer months.

These are not hantaviruses that are transmitted person to person however. As we approach these seasons, you may hear reports of hantavirus infections in the United States. And it is important for everyone to understand that these routine seasonal cases are separate from the MV Hondius outbreak.

For the outbreak that is occurring right now with the Andes virus, as you all know, CDC has assessed each affected us resident based on their presence on the MV Hondius during the time when Andes virus was spreading on board or where they were seated on a plane in relation to an infected person.

Across all these groups, our focus is to ensure appropriate health monitoring and quick self-isolation and access to care if they get sick. Before I talk about the monitoring guidance, I also want to clarify some things on Andes virus testing. First, CDC does not recommend testing people for Andes virus who have not experienced symptoms. Second, CDC, several state laboratories and Quest Diagnostics can test for the detection of North American hantaviruses which includes Andes virus. CDC uses serologic testing which can detect antibodies in the blood that show current or past infection for North American hantaviruses, and results from these tests can be turned around in about 24 hours. The University of Nebraska also offers a CLIA-certified RT-PCR test that specifically detects particles of the Andes virus in people.

Now I'm going to take a second to talk about our interim public health guidance for monitoring people with potential exposure that we updated yesterday. This is important to ensure appropriate health monitoring, and we will continue to update this guidance to reflect any new information. I'll start with guidance for people with high-risk exposures to the virus.

A person may be considered a higher risk contact if they were on the MV Hondius cruise ship between April 6th when the first person got sick with Andes virus and May 10th when the last passengers disembarked off the ship reported close contact exposures to a person sick with Andes virus or their body fluids is another type of high risk exposure.

Also those that were seated in close proximity to a person sick with Andes virus during air travel. I want to reinforce that Andes virus is not easy does not transmit easily. This is done through spread of close prolonged contact, and these individuals are being asked to follow enhanced precautions for 42 days after their last possible exposure so those high risk potential contacts.

During this monitoring period high risk contacts are advised to stay home and limit contact with others avoid being in buildings other than their home, avoid visitors to their residence, and coordinate any essential travel with their health department, and also be prepared to self-isolate immediately if symptoms develop.

CDC also recommends practical infection prevention steps for high-risk contacts including frequent hand hygiene improving indoor ventilation, wearing a well-fitting mask or respirator when around others or indoors or and maintaining physical distance and avoiding activities that involve close personal contact or sharing personal items. High risk individuals that live with others are encouraged to use sleeping and bathroom spaces that are separate to further reduce risk.

Non-urgent medical appointments should be postponed during the monitoring period. If urgent medical care is needed, contacts should coordinate with their health department in advance, even though Andes virus is not known to spread before a person develops symptoms.

These recommendations are a precaution in case an exposed person develops early symptoms and doesn't recognize them immediately.

In some cases Andes virus can cause severe lung disease that can be fatal. As there are no specific treatments and no vaccine, it is vital that we take all precautions to prevent spread in the United States.

Before I close I want to recognize the tremendous work of our state and local public health departments. They've been engaged with us as soon as we reached out and are doing a great job conducting active monitoring, the active monitoring I've talked about. I also appreciate the questions that we're getting, because we want to ensure that we're getting information out to Americans and American communities. Thank you all.

00:08:56 Mr. Haynes

Thank you, gentlemen, Ted we are ready to open up for questions.

00:09:01 Operator

Thank you; the phone lines are now open for questions if you're a credentialed member of the media and you would like to ask a question, press star one on your touch tone phone and record your name press star 2 to withdraw your question. The first question in the queue is from Brenda Goodman with CNN; your line is open.

00:09:19 Brenda Goodman, CNN

Thanks so much for taking my question; can you hear me OK?

00:09:22 Mr. Haynes

Yes ma'am, go on.

00:09:24 Ms. Goodman

Great if Dr. Bhattacharya is still there I wanted to ask about the Ebola outbreak, and then I also have a question about hantavirus, but it's already quite large it's already past the size that most Ebola outbreaks ever get and I just wondered if the CDC was talking about, you know, any traveler monitoring on airplanes, of wastewater, or perhaps, you know, screening of passengers as they come off.

And then the other thing I wanted to ask about was the passengers in Nebraska and Atlanta. We know from interviews that they, they want to come home, and I just wondered, you know, when if there's been any discussions about when that could happen. And we noticed the interim guidance from the CDC, the very detailed interim guidance for health departments, which looks great. Are all health departments able to follow those guidelines? Thank you.

00:10:29 Dr. Bhattacharya

This is Dr. Bhattacharya. So, for the Ebola outbreak, we are providing technical assistance to the countries. We have, CDC has offices in both Uganda and in the DRC. It is a large outbreak, and we were just informed yesterday about it so, you know, we've been working very, very hard to coordinate with them; we are going to provide whatever they need and that we are capable of providing them. It's a challenging area, as you know, because the, especially the DRC, it's there, there are lots of conflicts that are that go on there.

But we're working and coordinating with the Ministry of Health of the DRC and the Ministry of Health of Uganda to provide technical assistance and whatever, whatever they need.

Regarding the hantavirus, the question regarding hantavirus, we are closely coordinating with each with the, each passenger that was on the on that ship and in, on the, on the airplanes, and we're working to figure out how to best guide them regarding the disposition. We're working ver,y very closely with state and local health department leadership so that that they can get the very best information. Our goal is to protect of course them from and provide them the best care if they if they should get the developed symptoms and also to protect American communities. We will support state and local public health in all of their activities as well and coordinate closely with them so that we can provide them the resources they need to get the guidance and help they need to like, to accomplish the goal I just said, which is to protect both the passengers and the American people.

00:12:18 Mr. Haynes

Ted, next question.

00:12:22 Operator

Next question is from Erika Edwards with NBC News; your line is open.

00:12:26 Erika Edwards, NBC News

Hey thanks so much for doing this. I was wondering if you could give us an update on the timeline of how things are going with the 18 repatriated passengers. Are you still actively doing the assessments in Nebraska, and I guess at Emory as well, how long do you anticipate that process to take and are all 18 asymptomatic at this time? I'm just also curious what's your interpretation of how the folks in quarantine are doing mentally and emotionally. Thank you.

00:12:56 Dr. Fitter

Thank you. I will go back to what Dr. Bhattacharya just said: We are working very closely with the passengers in the state and local health departments to ensure that we have the appropriate disposition for everybody. I don't necessarily want to comment on the the people right now that are in monitoring in Kansas and or, sorry, in Nebraska. But our goal is to try to find the right disposition for everybody.

00:13:24 Mr. Haynes

Next question please.

00:13:27 Operator

Next question the queue is from Alicia Ault with Medscape Medical News. Your line is open.

00:13:33 Alicia Ault, Medscape Medical News

Hi yes thank you for doing this. It's Alicia Ault with Medscape. You've answered most of my question, which was about the testing, but I still wanted a little further clarification if possible. Is this CDC conducting regular testing, or is Nebraska doing regular testing of the passengers who are there, and same question for Emory, or are they only being tested if they're symptomatic, correct? And what about the people being monitored by state authorities? Are they being tested at all, or again, if it's only if they are symptomatic?

00:14:13 Dr. Fitter

So again it is about symptomatic testing and that is absolutely correct what you were saying so we recommend that only those that are have symptoms get tested.

I would like to reinforce something that we talked about before, but the symptoms of hantavirus is sort of a broad range of symptoms made sure in our guidance that that every state and local health department has those as well and we are working to coordinate any any evaluation of contacts that are in the country so we look at the symptoms. And then we also look at the epidemiologic evidence that we have and ensure that everybody gets tested if they need to be tested.

00:14:53 Mr. Haynes

Next question please.

00:14:55 Operator

Next question is from Leigh Ann Winick with CBS News; your line is open.

00:15:00 Leigh Ann Winick, CBS News

Thanks very much. I'm on hantavirus wondering if you can help us answer a lot of your questions we get about the plane passengers. So, we understand we're talking yesterday about that plane to Johannesburg. How confident are you that those passengers came then from Johannesburg through the US on various flights were not infectious. Have we gone far enough out in the timeline that we can be pretty confident there's not kind of a second round of passengers that have to be concerned. And for Dr. Bhattacharya, on Ebola, could you just address some of the issues with funding. Thoughts on whether there's a need now to ramp up or to relocate personnel to Africa to help with Ebola. Thank you both.

00:15:52 Dr. Bhattacharya

This is Dr. Bhattacharya. So, we've been working very closely with our international partners to understand the, you know, who was sitting where on that, on that flight, and we are very confident that we, we know who was at risk and who was at much less risk. And so, we appreciate the cooperation of these international partners and giving us this information in a timely manner so that we can make that assessment.

We are and of course all the other countries that have like participated and are involved in this have been cooperating with us including for I think a couple of a few Americans that are abroad as well that are in the being cared for by people by by our foreign partners.

I'm sorry; can you repeat the question about Ebola?

00:16:44 Ms. Winick

Can some of the drawbacks of US aid across the region in Africa, are you mobilizing more personnel to Africa or trying to get more funding to help contain the Ebola spread?

00:16:59 Dr. Bhattacharya

So we have country offices in both the DRC and in Uganda that are that are well staffed and that have the capacity to help the countries with the Ebola outbreak and we will absolutely mobilize there as needed uh we're following the lead of the the countries themselves.

We're not you know so we are cooperating with these countries and we're absolutely committed to making sure that they can get resources as they need and because that we have this continuing collaboration.

We're going to hear in real time if they have needs; we'll provide technical support and other other materials as needed. We have helped with other Ebola outbreaks in the past. I think they've been 16 or 17 previous Ebola outbreaks that the CDC has played a central role in helping coordinate and address. And we have, we've been working very hard with all of those in each of those settings, and we have lots of hard work, learned lessons.

The key thing here is to know that we are absolutely involved the philosophy is that if we have a safe world, if we have a world where we can address these needs like the Ebola outbreak, we will also have a safer America where these these these the risks and outbreaks that happen in the rest of the world, we reduced the risk of them coming here.

00:18:21 Mr. Haynes

Next question please.

00:18:24 Operator

Next question is from Melody Schreiber with The Guardian US. Yyour line is open.

00:18:29 Melody Schreiber, The Guardian US

Thank you so much; my question is about testing and laboratory capacity for hantavirus and Ebola to fund viral hemorrhagic fever. So are there any dangers of doing serologic testing for hantavirus since that's not going to catch earlier infections and what's their lab capacity look like for these in the US and globally?

How many people are working on in these departments? What's the turnaround time yeah? Any details are welcome. Thank you.

00:19:02 Dr. Fitter

With regards to testing capacity for hantavirus we feel very confident with our testing capacity here in the United States. Again, as I discussed earlier, we do have a strain of hantavirus in the US that is not spread person to person, and so we were prepared for that. Additionally, CDC has supported, but truly these countries DRC and Uganda have amazing testing capacity, and they respond well to these outbreaks. We are there to support them as needed.

00:19:32 Mr. Haynes

Next question please.

00:19:35 Operator

Next question is from Sydney Babb with Channel 6 WOWT Omaha; your line is open.

00:19:42 Sydney Babb, WOWT-TV, Omaha

Just want to make sure you guys can hear me OK.

00:19:46 Mr. Haynes

Yes ma'am, go ahead.

00:19:47 Ms. Babb

OK when it comes to the passengers who are currently quarantining at UNMC, we wanted to know how much it costs for the hospital to care for these people during that 42-day period and what people or entities specifically are covering that cost.

00:20:08 Dr. Bhattacharya

This is Dr. Bhattacharya. So, the US government has contracts with the facility and the University of Nebraska, and it's supported by by by Americans who have the the goal is to make sure that we are prepared to keep Americans safe when there is this outbreak. And in particular, ASPR is the lead agency for that contract. And as far as like charges to that, the people or the passengers that house there there's none, So, it's the, the idea is to protect Americans from any of these of these threats including the Andes outbreak but also to do a fantastic job protecting the passengers themselves from any harm they might face from the possible infection.

00:20:59 Mr. Haynes

Ted we have time for 2 more questions please.

00:21:03 Operator

OK the next question is from Anthony Stitt with Healio;your line is open.

00:21:08 Anthony Stitt, Healio

Hi, first thanks for hosting this meeting, and thank you also for taking my question. I'm just looking for confirmation that that there is no case of hantavirus in the country, specifically with the the couple who was in biocontainment in Atlanta. And if there is no, if they're not infected with the virus, are they still in biocontainment? Thank you.

00:21:38 Dr. Fitter

So to clarify there are no cases of Andes of the Andes strain of hantavirus in the United States, and you know, in an effort to protect any privacy of somebody, we don't discuss where they are.

00:21:55 Mr. Haynes

Our last question please.

00:21:55 Mr. Stitt

OK thank you.

00:21:56 Mr. Haynes

I'm sorry: If you had a follow up, go ahead. Sorry Ted I'll reach back out to him. We'll go with the last question.

00:22:07 Operator

OK the last question is from Alice Park with Time; your line is open.

00:22:13 Alice Park, Time Magazine

Thank you. I'm wondering, in the interest of helping people to better understand particularly the risk that context, might have, can you share any information that we know of the passengers on the ship who were infected: what their contacts were, were their cabins close together,, did they share meals what type of contact did they have, that we're seeing those passengers get infected from the initial person?

00:22:46 Dr. Bhattacharya

So this is Dr. Bhattacharya. the Epi investigations are still ongoing just going to briefly say that there's nothing that we've seen thus far contradicts the understanding that is is in the literature regarding the Andes virus this is a classic Andes virus outbreak.

Uh I should say the WHO has also released some information on this as well so I refer you to that to that but we've we've done our own investigation and we're still tracking that very closely.

00:23:20 Mr. Haynes

Thank you Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. Fitter, and thank you all for joining us today. A transcript of this briefing will be posted to the CDC newsroom, and if you have additional questions, please feel free to contact the CDC media office. Thank you.

00:23:35 Operator

This concludes today's call; thank you for your participation; you may disconnect at this time.