Us Health Agencies Equipped To Handle Hantavirus, Acting Cdc Director Says

The nation’s top doctor on Sunday pushed back on criticism from other public health officials over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's handling of the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Canary Islands.

In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” acting Director Jay Bhattacharya said the CDC is fully equipped to handle the hantavirus outbreak potentially making its way to the U.S., even as 17 passengers begin their return back to the states after exposure to the virus that killed three people aboard their cruise ship.

Bhattacharya said American health agencies are coordinating with the World Health Organization, among other international health partners.

“They didn't see what the CDC has been doing,” said Bhattacharya, who is also the director for the National Institutes of Health. “We are in touch with the WHO. We're in touch with the international health organizations, including the one in Spain, and we have been providing technical assistance to all of those organizations all the way through.”

Public health officials have criticized the CDC's response to the outbreak, which began in early May. Despite the WHO declaring the outbreak just days later, the CDC remained quiet, even though multiple American passengers remained on board.

The outbreak comes after the Trump administration laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program, last year.

Regardless, President Donald Trump told reporters Friday: “We seem to have things under very good control.”

Already, seven Americans who were on board the ship have returned home to Arizona, Georgia, California, Texas and Virginia. The remaining 17 American passengers will be flown to the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, where they will be evaluated for risk.

Mike Waltz, American ambassador to the United Nations, on Sunday told ABC’s “This Week” that the U.S. has been “coordinating closely with our European partners.”

"My understanding is, we have teams on the ground. We’re taking care of the Americans that were on that ship,” Waltz said. “They will get repatriation flights. And they will come back to Nebraska.”

However, Bhattacharya told CNN that while these travelers will be offered the opportunity to stay in Nebraska, the CDC will not force them to do so. Instead, the travelers will be given advice and, if safe to do so, will be allowed to fly them home under the auspices of their state and local public health agencies.

“This is not Covid, Jake,” Bhattacharya told host Jake Tapper. “And we don't want to treat it like Covid. We don't want to cause a public panic over this. We want to treat it with hantavirus protocols that, again, were successful in containing outbreaks in the past."