MW There are no hantavirus treatments. The deadly cruise-ship outbreak is a 'wake-up call' to develop some.

By Jaimy Lee

Three people who were onboard the ship have died

"Maybe this is a wake-up call," said Kartik Chandran, a hantavirus researcher and a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Back in 2019, a group of scientists took $22 million from the U.S. government and developed a monoclonal antibody that appears to work in the lab against the Andes virus - which is responsible for the cruise-ship outbreak that has killed three people so far - and two other hantaviruses.

But the project has since stalled. Without additional funding from the government or a nonprofit, the researchers don't have the money to put the experimental treatment through its first human studies, according to Kartik Chandran, the project's leader and a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. That's a necessary next step to bring any treatment to market.

"We have been stuck for the last three or four years trying to raise funding," he said, adding: "What's missing is the infusion of funds and resources that would be needed to take a lead candidate, whether that's a vaccine or an antibody, into [the] clinic."

Chandran says the struggle to secure funding for hantavirus research is because these viruses haven't been a priority. There were only 229 cases and 59 deaths in the Americas in 2025, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Now, as health officials and the travel industry cope with the fallout from the cruise outbreak, the lack of attention to hantaviruses appears short-sighted.

"Maybe this is a wake-up call," Chandran said.

'There's going to be more situations like this'

Hantaviruses are found across the globe. Each one is a little different based on its rodent host. Old World hantaviruses, which are endemic to Africa, Asia and Europe, can cause hemorrhagic fever with kidney disease. They are less deadly than New World hantaviruses, which are found in the Americas. These include the Sin Nombre virus in the Western U.S. and the Andes virus in Argentina and Chile.

The Andes virus attacks the lungs, causing hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. It's responsible for the deadly outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, in which three people have died and five others got sick.

Read: Worried about the Andes virus? Experts say it's not the next pandemic.

That outbreak, which is still being investigated, has raised questions about the lack of treatments and vaccines for hantaviruses - including the Andes strain, which was first identified in the mid-1990s - while reigniting talk about pandemic preparedness.

For the scientists who study hantaviruses, particularly the Andes virus, the outbreak doesn't come as a surprise. Some speculate that Andes virus outbreaks are increasing amid deforestation, which pushes rodents out of their natural habitats and closer to humans.

"Deforestation is continuing to happen. People like to travel, and this kind of thing is not going to be uncommon," said Robert Cross, a hantavirus researcher and assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. "There's going to be more situations like this."

Traws Pharma - a small biotech firm that counts Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the first Trump administration, among its leaders - announced Friday that it's going to start working on therapies that can treat Hantaan virus, an Old World hantavirus found in East Asia. The company's stock (TRAW) soared 28% in trading on Friday afternoon.

An outbreak caused by the Andes strain is notable because it's the only hantavirus that we know of that can spread between people in close contact, and it has a fatality rate that can be as high as 50%.

It's typically contracted in rural areas where people come in contact with contaminated dust or rodent droppings, urine and saliva. But two recent infections in Taipei underscore the idea that rodent populations infected with hantaviruses may be moving into cities, according to Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-disease doctor and founding director of Boston University's Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. In this case, an Old World hantavirus was at fault, not the Andes strain that's responsible for the outbreak on the cruise ship.

"Hantavirus represents a climate-sensitive emerging pathogen," Bhadelia noted.

That said, the people who are most at risk of contracting hantaviruses tend to work or live in remote regions - including soldiers, farmers or those employed by mines or oil fields.

-Jaimy Lee

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May 08, 2026 13:43 ET (17:43 GMT)

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