90-Second Read: 'The CDC is not even a player.' As Hantavirus outbreak unfolds on ship, agency is MIA, experts say

To experts, the situation aboard a cruise ship has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, Hantavirus does not spread easily. 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. The Hantavirus outbreak is "a sentinel event" that speaks to "how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. It has been health experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the last week. 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. The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency's ship sanitation program. In interviews this week, some experts made a comparison with a 2020 incident involving the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Japan that became the setting of one of the first large COVID-19 outbreaks outside China. NEW YORK — No quick dispatching of disease investigators. Health officials confirmed the deployment of a team to Spain's Canary Islands, where the ship was expected to arrive early Sunday local time, to meet the Americans onboard.

The CDC is not even a player," said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world's premier public health agency. It made the risk assessment that has told people the outbreak is not a pandemic threat. As this was playing out, Kennedy said he was working to "restore the CDC's focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency." The CDC has not been completely silent on Hantavirus. At their first briefing, held Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under rules set by aides to Health Secretary.

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. The CDC was right on top of it, very visible, very active in trying to manage and contain it," Gostin said, while the agency's work now is delayed and subdued. Arizona officials this week said they learned from the CDC that one of the Americans who left the ship — a person with no symptoms and not considered contagious — had already returned to the state. But federal health officials have mostly been tight-lipped, declining interview requests. Some aspects of the international response to the Diamond Princess were criticized, and it.