President Donald Trump said Monday he thinks the U.S. is “in very good shape” in dealing with the hantavirus that has killed three people and sickened a number of others after an outbreak on a cruise ship.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said his administration’s response so far has been “fine” and he said he does not regret withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
Some experts have said U.S. authorities have been slow to respond to the outbreak.
“I hope it’s fine. All I can do is everything that a president can do, which is something — which is actually somewhat limited,” Trump said.
“The one thing with this one is that it’s much harder to catch,” he said. “It’s been around for a long time, people are very familiar with it.”
The outbreak aboard the cruise ship of the rare rodent-borne illness called hantavirus has left three passengers dead and sickened others, but global health officials say the risk to the general public remains low because the germ does not easily spread between people.
Other members of the Trump administration also insisted Friday the U.S. has the deadly hantavirus “under control,” and is “well prepared” to deal with the outbreak.
“We have this under control and we’re not worried about it,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday when asked about the virus.
Hantavirus is mainly spread by contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings, particularly when the material is disturbed and becomes airborne, posing a risk of inhalation.
But the hantavirus that has caused the current outbreak, called the Andes virus, may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Because of this, health officials are taking extra precaution with passengers returning to their home countries.
Hantaviruses have been around for centuries and are thought to exist around the world. The disease gained renewed attention last year after the late actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.
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