Stanford Expert Says Hantavirus Cruise Outbreak Won't Cause Pandemic, But It's a Warning Sign

As fear spreads faster than the virus itself, a Stanford Medicine infectious disease expert is urging calm, while also calling the MV Hondius hantavirus outbreak a serious wake-up call for global health preparedness.

Dr Jorge Salinas, MD, medical director of infection prevention at Stanford Health Care and a former CDC epidemiologist, says the public's risk from the current cruise ship outbreak is negligible.

"If you're going on a plane or cruise this summer, your risk of getting hantavirus is very close to zero," Salinas told Stanford Medicine News.

The Andes virus, confirmed aboard the MV Hondius, is the only hantavirus strain capable of limited human-to-human transmission. But Salinas stresses it is nothing like COVID-19 or influenza in terms of transmissibility. Data from a 2018 Argentina outbreak, which infected 34 and killed 11, showed that even then, over 80 healthcare workers with unprotected contact with patients were not infected, illustrating how inefficiently the virus transmits between humans.

What makes hantavirus alarming is its 35–38% fatality rate in severe cases, and the complete absence of approved vaccines or antiviral treatments. Patients can only receive supportive care, oxygen, ventilation, or, in the worst cases, ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation).

Salinas sees the MV Hondius outbreak as part of a larger pattern of zoonotic diseases, viruses jumping from animals to humans, a trend he expects to accelerate with climate change and habitat destruction.  

"This outbreak will end. But it won't be the last."