<\/p>\n
A Spanish Civil Guard officer inspects the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP<\/p>\n
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n
Misper Apawu\/AP<\/p>\n
Crew members of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, wait their turns for a first interview with epidemiologists, during the voyage to Spain’s port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n
Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP<\/p>\n
Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain’s port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors.<\/p>\n
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In the midst of a strange outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been missing in action, according to a number of experts.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe seem to have things under very good control,” President Donald Trump told reporters Friday evening.<\/p>\n
But experts say the situation has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. It has been experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the past week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. \u201cI’ve never seen that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CDC’s diminished role in this outbreak is an indicator the agency is no longer the force in international health or the protector of domestic health that it once was, some experts said.<\/p>\n
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The hantavirus outbreak is \u201ca sentinel event\u201d that speaks to \u201chow well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I\u2019m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,\u201d said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.<\/p>\n
How the outbreak unfolded<\/p>\n
Early last month, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed a feverish illness on a cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Antarctica and some islands in the South Atlantic. He died less than a week later. More people became sick, including the man’s wife and a German woman, who both died.<\/p>\n
Hantavirus was first identified as a cause of sickness of one of the cases on May 2. The World Health Organization swung into action and by Monday was calling it an outbreak. About two dozen Americans were on the ship, including about seven who disembarked last month and 17 who remained on board.<\/p>\n
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It’s WHO taking center stage<\/p>\n
For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in such situations. The CDC acted as a mainstay of any international investigation, providing staff and expertise to help unravel any outbreak mystery, develop ways to control it and communicate to the public what they should know and how they should worry.<\/p>\n
Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world’s premier public health agency.<\/p>\n
But this time, the WHO has been center stage. It made the risk assessment that has told people the outbreak is not a pandemic threat.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t think this is a giant threat to the United States,\u201d said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University\u2019s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out \u201cjust shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tumult until Trump<\/p>\n
The current situation comes after 16 tumultuous months during which the Trump administration withdrew from the WHO, has restricted CDC scientists from talking to international counterparts at times and embarked on a plan to build its own international public health network through one-on-one agreements with individual countries.<\/p>\n
The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program.<\/p>\n
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