"The Trump administration has slashed funding for infectious disease research and has far fewer employees, including disease detectives, to respond to outbreaks."
"On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first person aboard a cruise ship died of hantavirus, 30 passengers, including six Americans, disembarked in St. Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Americans are now back on U.S. soil, and three states are monitoring them; none have shown symptoms so far. That information came on Wednesday — not from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or from the State Department, which is coordinating the nation’s response to the hantavirus outbreak, but from the medical news publication MedPage Today. (The New York Times confirmed the report with state officials.)
More than four hours after the news emerged, the C.D.C. issued its first public statement about the outbreak, saying, “We are working closely with our international partners to provide technical assistance and guidance to mitigate risk.” It did not mention the Americans who were back in the country or efforts to monitor them.
It was only a day earlier, on Tuesday, that the agency had set up a team to respond to the outbreak, nearly a month after the first patient had died."
Apoorva Mandavilli reports for the New York Times May 7, 2026.
SEE ALSO:
"Health Officials Track Dozens Who Left Hantavirus-Stricken Ship After First Fatality" (AP)
