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Date May 13, 2026
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Q&A: Epidemiologist from Brown University’s Pandemic Center on the hantavirus outbreak

By Juan Siliezar, Associate Director of Media Relations and Leadership Communications, School of Public Health

Epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo from the Brown University School of Public Health addresses the public’s concern and the response from U.S. health officials.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the South Atlantic has killed at least three and sickened multiple other people, prompting health officials to monitor disembarked passengers across multiple countries.

The Dutch-flagged vessel MV Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 carrying nearly 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries, including 18 Americans. The outbreak has been confirmed as hantavirus, a pathogen carried by some rodents that can infect humans in rare, but often deadly, instances.

Experts at the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health are monitoring developments through the center’s Outbreak Observatory data tracker and weekly Tracking Report newsletter.

In this Q&A, Pandemic Center Director Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology whose work focuses on public health preparedness and response, explains what the public should know about the outbreak.

Q: What makes this strain of hantavirus different than others?

The Andes virus [ANDV] strain is a species of hantavirus that mostly circulates in Latin America — Argentina and Chile in particular. It is different from the hantavirus strain that, for instance, occurs in the southwest of the United States, in that we have seen limited person-to-person transmission, usually among people with close, prolonged contact. The Andes strain also tends to be a little more severe.

Q: What do people misunderstand about this outbreak?

I think people are very understandably concerned that this could be the start of another COVID-like pandemic. I think that is unlikely to be the case. I'm not worried about a pandemic happening here.

What I am worried about is that the usual health response that we see out of the U.S. government isn't happening and that this may be the virus telling us that it has gained some increased ability to infect and spread on a more limited basis. We don't have great medical tools to treat people who are infected. We don't have medical tools to prevent infection. Those are the kinds of research projects that we should be doing to try to stay ahead of not just this virus, but other deadly viruses. It doesn't have to be a pandemic to be a problem.

In this case, the fact that we have this virus that's acting in a way that's a bit confusing or a bit concerning — and we don't yet have all the answers — is the reason why we do research and why we respond swiftly to try to stay ahead of it.

Q: How do health experts think the virus spread on the MV Hondius?

It seems like the first case may have been someone who was traveling in Argentina before getting on the boat, and then a person they were traveling with subsequently became ill and died.

The thinking is that the other infections on the boat happened person-to-person. These people are together in a small space and have probably had a lot of opportunity to interact with each other and touch common surfaces, so that's the working hypothesis for how it likely spread — but I don't think we know for sure at this point.

At the same time, I don't think we expect to see much more onward transmission outside of people who’ve already been exposed on the ship, if the returned travelers go into quarantine or isolation.

I'm not worried about a [hantavirus] pandemic happening here. What I am worried about is that the usual health response that we see out of the U.S. government isn't happening and that this may be the virus telling us that it has gained some increased ability to infect and spread on a more limited basis.

Jennifer Nuzzo Director of the Pandemic Center, Professor of Epidemiology
 
headshot of Jennifer Nuzzo in blue shirt

Q: How dangerous is hantavirus?

This is a pretty deadly virus. It can kill about a third or more of people infected. That said, it's a rare infection — not a lot of people get it. As far as symptoms go, so far patients have had fevers, gastrointestinal symptoms and some respiratory symptoms. They can also develop pneumonia, breathing difficulties and shock.

Q: What happens next for passengers who have left the ship?

Procedures are different for each country, but in the U.S., some symptomatic passengers are being treated at specialized biocontainment units, including at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, while many exposed passengers are quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Because this virus has such a long incubation period — roughly one to eight weeks before affected people show symptoms — we could be talking about keeping them there for an extended period.

Q: Why are people criticizing the response from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?

I know the CDC has been working behind the scenes, particularly in terms of the repatriation of Americans who are on the ship. My understanding is they also have been in contact with local health departments about the outbreak and what they're doing, but none of that has really been made public, and that is a deep mistake. When U.S. health officials have spoken on the outbreak, they have tended to speak overconfidently about how this virus is transmitted. They've said that it requires close, sustained contact from a symptomatic person. Though the limited data we have on past cases suggest that transmission is most common that way, these data are too few to support such definitive conclusions. We can't rule out the possibility of transmission before symptoms or from less than close, sustained contact.

A comparison is the European CDC. Around that same time, they published a technical document that described the virus as well as the threat that it poses. We really haven't seen that type of deep dive analysis from the U.S. CDC, despite its very great technical capacities.

We also haven't heard enough from the scientific experts at the CDC. We've mainly heard from the political appointees, and that's just not best practice. It doesn't engender confidence, doesn't help Americans understand how much of a threat this poses — even though it’s very low — or how much the average person should be concerned.

This piece was adapted from a longer Q&A published on the Brown University School of Public health website.

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