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News of a hantavirus outbreak has dominated mainstream media since last week, after some international cruise ship passengers contracted the virus, and three passengers died.
The media’s incessant focus on the outbreak and its possible spread doesn’t serve the public’s best interest, according to Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski, who said:
“Mainstream media is hyping and sensationalizing contagious viruses while the memory of locking down and masking up is still fresh. This increases clicks, ad revenue and fear, which drives consumers to media’s No. 1 sponsor — Big Pharma. It also desensitizes us to the alerts.”
The hantavirus outbreak is the latest in a string of infectious diseases that the media have fixated on, including bird flu and monkeypox.
At a press conference today in Madrid, Spain, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there were 11 confirmed hantavirus cases among passengers or crew of the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was en route from Argentina to Spain.
The ship, which carried fewer than 150 people, left Argentina on April 1. On April 6, a Dutch man became ill. It was later confirmed that he and his wife had hantavirus. Both died. Argentine officials suspect the couple was exposed to hantavirus during a bird-watching tour before boarding the ship.
The ship crew, guided by the WHO, undertook containment measures. On May 10, the ship anchored offshore of Spain’s Canary Islands, where passengers were escorted ashore by personnel in protective gear.
Eighteen U.S. passengers have returned to the U.S. and are being medically monitored, CNN reported today. Sixteen people, including one who tested positive, are in Nebraska and asymptomatic. Two are in Atlanta — one of them is experiencing symptoms.
In an initial May 7 press release, and again today, the WHO said the risk to the public was low.
“There is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak, but of course the situation could change and, given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” Tedros said today.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond when asked to comment on the outbreak. However, on Monday, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the U.S. has the virus “under control.”
Hantavirus infections can be fatal but are rare
According to Tedros, nine of the 11 hantavirus cases from the cruise ship have been confirmed as the Andes strain — the only strain known to sometimes transmit person-to-person.
Hantaviruses, a family of viruses named after the Hantaan River area in Korea where it was first identified, can be fatal, but infection is rare. There are roughly 10,000 to 100,000 infections worldwide annually, according to WHO data.
The risk of death depends on the strain. Old World hantaviruses found mostly in Europe and Asia can cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. They are associated with a fatality rate of less than 1% to 15%, the WHO said.
New World hantaviruses found in the Americas, including the Andes strain, can have a mortality rate of up to 50%. The Andes strain can cause hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), a condition that causes the lungs to fill with fluid, according to the WHO.
People typically contract hantaviruses only from exposure to rodent droppings, urine or saliva. Although rodents carry hantaviruses, they don’t get sick from them.
Symptoms usually develop one to eight weeks after exposure and include fatigue, fever and achy muscles, especially in the thighs, hips or back.
Hantavirus ‘not going to spread like a pandemic virus like COVID did’
It is widely acknowledged that the current hantavirus does not pose a pandemic threat. Unlike COVID-19, hantavirus doesn’t genetically mutate quickly in a way that fuels rapid transmission.
Even former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who wrote a book criticizing the U.S. public health response to COVID-19 as inadequate, told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that the hantavirus is “not going to spread like a pandemic virus like COVID did.”
Dr. Joseph Varon, president of the Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), wrote in an op-ed for the Brownstone Institute that there is “no evidence-based justification for widespread public panic.”
Still, mainstream news organizations continue to raise alarm. For instance, The New York Times today ran an op-ed titled, “We Should Take Hantavirus More Seriously.”
According to Varon, a critical care physician and professor who has authored over 980 peer-reviewed publications and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Independent Medicine:
“After Covid-19, one might assume society would have learned the importance of measured communication. Instead, many institutions appear trapped in a perpetual cycle of alarmism.
“Every unusual pathogen is immediately framed through the lens of catastrophe. Every isolated event becomes a potential ‘emerging crisis.’ The result is a population psychologically conditioned to interpret uncertainty as imminent disaster.”
The media aren’t solely to blame, Varon said. The deeper issue is modern society’s discomfort with uncertainty. He wrote:
“We seek absolute safety in a world where absolute safety does not exist. Infectious diseases, environmental risks, accidents, and biological unpredictability are inseparable from human existence. Mature societies recognize this reality without descending into fatalism or hysteria.”
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Is this a ‘pandemic play’ to generate profits for vaccine makers?
There’s some speculation that the hantavirus outbreak — and the news coverage of it — is another “pandemic play,” CHD.TV Director Polly Tommey told Jablonowski in a May 8 episode of “Good Morning CHD.”
“When billions of dollars are to be made, it’s hard to tell,” Jablonowski responded. “But, it is important to note that there are some vaccines in development for hantavirus.”
In 2024, University of Texas researchers reported initial success in creating an mRNA vaccine for the Andes strain. A year earlier, the U.S. Army and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported clinical trial results of a DNA vaccine targeting the Andes strain.
Moderna and Korea University have been working on an mRNA hantavirus vaccine since 2023.
“How would a viable commercial market be ensured for a vaccine for such an obscure disease?” wrote David Bell, M.D., Ph.D., in an op-ed for The Daily Sceptic. That would require “large swathes of the population to be convinced that they are at far higher risk than they actually are, or coerced into taking it,” Bell said.
Bell is a clinical and public health doctor with a doctorate in population health. He formerly worked as a WHO medical officer and scientist.
Bell noted that the WHO’s top donors are the Gates Foundation and the GAVI Alliance — both involving vaccine promoter Bill Gates and pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer.
Big Pharma is influencing the WHO’s priorities, Bell said.
Nearly 2,000 people — mostly young children — die daily from malaria due to lack of access to effective and relatively cheap treatment. Around 4,000 die daily from tuberculosis.
“Why the excitement over Hantavirus?” Bell asked. “Why is the Director-General of the entire WHO spending so much time on this, when diseases of poverty are rising and basics such as nutrition funding are falling? A fascinating question.”
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