As the passengers from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship make their way home, one public health expert is raising concerns about what he sees as contradictory messaging from officials over how the virus is transmitted. While Joseph G. Allen, professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard University, told MS NOW that the current threat to the general population is low, he believes the public “deserves to know what the science is about how this is transmitted.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, “spread is usually limited to people who have close contact with a sick person. This includes direct physical contact, prolonged time spent in close or enclosed spaces, and exposure to the sick person’s body fluids.”
However, Allen explained, “when I go read the literature about prior outbreaks of this virus, not on a ship, it is very clear we’ve had transmission that happened very rapidly and did not require close contact.”
Because of this discrepancy, the professor told MS NOW’s “The Weekend: Primetime” that he contacted a doctor aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship. So far, there are at least 10 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus connected to the ship, including three deaths.
“I asked him, ‘What is actually happening on the ship? And where am I off, or where are other people off in this messaging?’ And he confirmed to me something really important, and that’s messaging has not broken through,” Allen said. He added that the doctor confirmed patients were being treated who were in “close contact” with previously infected individuals, but some “did not have what he called close contact.”
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“They shared time in the dining room or in the lecture room on this ship, but they were not in close physical contact,” he explained. “So I find the official messaging contradicted by what we know from previous outbreaks and published in the literature, and what I was told about the experience on the ship.”
Allen said that the science does indicate that the “overall threat to the general public is low,” but urged public health officials to educate the general population about transmission. “We need to know how to keep people safe and also know who we should contact-trace,” he said.
While the professor said he was unsure of the “motivations” behind the messaging discrepancy, he suggested that some of it was likely an effort to “reassure people,” which he said he believed was “fair.”
“I just think it’s smart to be a little more cautious about our messaging to the public and making it seem like it’s so incredibly hard to transmit,” Allen added. “We all have a collective interest in making sure that these people are safe and cared for and that we don’t have ongoing secondary transmission. To prevent that, secondary transmission requires telling the public how it is transmitted so that they can take the appropriate precautions.”
You can watch Allen’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”