Trump cut hantavirus research funding before deadly cruise ship outbreak

A deadly hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship has renewed scrutiny of a cancelled US-backed study into how the rare virus spreads under the Trump administration.

In Short

• Five Andes hantavirus cases were confirmed after passengers left before detection
• Authorities across countries are tracing contacts as the ship route widened exposure
• A US-backed Argentina study on transmission was scrapped after funding cuts

As health authorities across multiple countries monitor passengers exposed to a deadly virus outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship, fresh attention is turning to a cancelled US-backed research programme that had aimed to study the same rare strain now linked to the outbreak.

The outbreak, caused by hantavirus, aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship has so far caused three deaths and infected several others.

Five confirmed cases of the Andes strain of hantavirus have now been reported, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), while several countries continue contact tracing efforts after some passengers left the ship before the illness was detected.

The outbreak has raised concerns because the Andes strain is one of the few hantaviruses known to spread between humans, though experts say such transmission is rare.

Now, scientists say a US-funded pilot project that could have helped researchers better understand how the virus spreads was shut down last year after federal funding cuts.

According to a report published in Scientific American, the project was linked to the West African Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (WAC-EID), part of a larger research network studying emerging infectious diseases and how they jump from animals to humans.

The programme had been supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), before funding, under the Trump administration, was eliminated in 2025 as part of broader cuts to infectious disease surveillance and research.

“We found out that there was a group in Argentina that wanted to do similar kinds of things that we were doing in West Africa,” Scott Weaver, former principal investigator at WAC-EID, told Scientific American.

“We supported them to put in an application for a pilot award, and they were successful in getting funded,” he said.

The Argentina project was trying to study how hantavirus moves from rodents to humans and whether the virus could spread more easily between people under certain conditions.

WHAT MAKES THIS HANTAVIRUS STRAIN WORRYING?

Hantavirus infections are usually caused by contact with infected rodents, especially exposure to their urine, saliva, or droppings.

Most strains do not spread between humans. But the Andes variant, the strain confirmed on the cruise ship, is unusual because it can occasionally pass from person to person through close contact.

Scientists still do not fully understand how this transmission happens.

Experts suspect the virus may spread through direct exposure to saliva, such as kissing, though it remains unclear whether coughing or sneezing can also transmit infection through tiny aerosol droplets.

The virus can become severe quickly. Infected patients may develop fluid build-up in the lungs, breathing failure, haemorrhagic fever, or kidney failure.

The incubation period for hantavirus ranges from one to six weeks, making it difficult for health authorities to identify exposures early.

WHO officials have stressed that the overall public health risk remains low because the virus does not appear to spread easily among humans.

CRUISE SHIP OUTBREAK SPREADS CONCERN ACROSS COUNTRIES

The MV Hondius (the luxury cruise ship) outbreak has drawn international attention because passengers travelled across multiple destinations before cases were detected.

The ship had departed from Argentina in April and travelled through Antarctica and remote Atlantic islands before authorities were alerted to the outbreak.

At a briefing, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the outbreak as “serious” but said the public health risk remains low.

SCIENTISTS WARN AGAINST WEAKENING INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH

The cancelled hantavirus research project is now being cited by some scientists as an example of why surveillance programmes remain important even for rare diseases.

The WAC-EID programme had earlier helped improve outbreak detection systems for diseases such as dengue fever in West Africa.

In their final filing before funding cuts, researchers wrote that continuing the programme would “reduce response times to emerging infectious disease threats” and improve preparedness for future outbreaks.

Weaver told the SciAm that the Argentina study would probably not have prevented the cruise ship outbreak itself. However, he warned that cutting funding for research into lesser-known viruses could leave countries less prepared in the future.

“We’re not in a good position to say [hantavirus], just because it’s never caused big outbreaks, doesn’t have the potential to do that one day,” Weaver said.

The WHO currently says the Andes hantavirus outbreak does not resemble the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, mainly because the virus spreads far less efficiently between people.

But the incident has renewed debate over whether global public health systems are becoming less prepared for emerging infectious threats.

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