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Researchers have been working on hantaviruses for a long time, but they point to a lack of funding for broader studies.
There is currently no clear treatment protocol for hantavirus infections, which are typically transmitted by rodents, and no widely available vaccines. As a result, doctors on the cruise ship MV Hondius had very limited options to save infected patients, according to The New York Times.
“This is a kind of alarm signal. Our toolkit is almost empty,” said infectious disease researcher Dr. Vaithee Arumugamvasamy from the University of California, Los Angeles. Although several scientific groups worldwide have been working—sometimes for decades—on treatments and vaccines for hantavirus, securing funding has been difficult because the virus is relatively rare and does not spread easily between people.
“This is not an airborne, highly contagious viral threat, so it has not been prioritized like pandemic prevention,” said U.S. Army infectious disease virologist Jay Hooper.
However, promising vaccine and treatment candidates do exist, and experts say they could be advanced more quickly if hantavirus research became a higher priority.
Vaccine development
There are two main types of hantaviruses: Old World viruses (found mainly in Asia and Europe) and New World viruses (found in the Americas). The outbreak on the cruise ship is linked to a New World strain known as the Andes virus, which is the only hantavirus known to spread between humans.
Some vaccines for Old World hantaviruses exist in Asia, but their effectiveness is limited. No licensed vaccines currently exist for New World strains such as Sin Nombre virus.
That said, several candidates are in development. Dr. Jay Hooper and colleagues have developed a DNA vaccine for Andes virus that showed encouraging early results, with over 80% of participants producing neutralizing antibodies in a small trial.
Other research teams are exploring alternative approaches, including nasal vaccines designed to trigger stronger immune responses in the respiratory tract. However, these are still in early experimental stages, often tested only in animals, and large-scale human trials are difficult due to the rarity of cases.
Treatment
At present, treatment is mainly supportive care, including oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation, and intensive care support for organ failure.
The antiviral drug ribavirin is sometimes used, but there is no strong evidence of its effectiveness against New World hantaviruses.
Researchers are also testing other experimental therapies. Some studies suggest the influenza drug favipiravir may inhibit Andes virus in cell models, and antibody-based therapies derived from recovered patients are showing promising results in animal studies.
However, many of these potential treatments have stalled due to lack of funding, with experts estimating that tens of millions of dollars would be needed to move them into advanced clinical development.
Key takeaway
Hantavirus is not a highly contagious disease, but it can be severe and sometimes fatal. While scientific tools for vaccines and treatments exist, most remain experimental, and progress is largely limited by funding and low commercial incentive.
