By Kritika Agarwal
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday that 41 people in the United States are currently being monitored for hantavirus, with early cases linked to passengers from a cruise ship. As with COVID-19 and other recent infectious disease outbreaks, research universities are once again on the front lines of helping the nation respond quickly and effectively.
Where High-Risk Patients Go First
Academic medical centers and university-affiliated hospitals host many of the nation’s most advanced facilities for receiving and treating patients with high-risk infectious diseases. Two of the passengers linked to the most recent hantavirus outbreak, for example, were transferred to Emory University Hospital because it is “one of a handful of units in the country with the specialized infrastructure, training, and clinical expertise required to safely manage high-consequence infectious diseases such as hantavirus.” In 2014, Emory Hospital successfully treated four Ebola patients.
Emory is a leader in the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC) consortium, which includes 13 treatment centers across the nation. NETEC was founded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC to “set the gold standard for special pathogen preparedness and response.”
NETEC consortium leaders and regional partners provide frontline care and rapid response to confirmed pathogen incidents, and many are affiliated with research universities. This includes the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which houses the nation’s only federally funded National Quarantine Unit; more than a dozen of the passengers exposed to the hantavirus in the recent outbreak are currently under quarantine there.
Other regional partners include those located at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which is on standby to receive hantavirus patients; University of Minnesota Medical Center; University of Chicago Medical Center; Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and others.
Universities are able to play these roles not only because of their world-class facilities, but also because of their expert clinicians and researchers, who can work with public health officials to perform diagnostic testing, understand transmission, and develop treatment protocols. (Academic medical centers are also crucial training grounds for the next generation of medical students, residents, nurses, and public health professionals who will help the nation respond to future outbreaks.)
Research That Saves Lives
University research is also crucial to improving our understanding of how infectious diseases spread and to finding potential treatments. Researchers have been studying the hantavirus for years, although no current treatment or vaccine is available – largely because, as The New York Times explains, “it has not been easy to find funding or nurture commercial interest in medical interventions for a type of pathogen that does not infect humans often and does not spread easily between people.”
Nevertheless, advances in treating hantavirus (including vaccines) are currently under development. Jay Hooper, a virologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, “has been working to develop a vaccine against several species of hantavirus that can infect people,” according to Nature. At the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers – with funding from the National Institutes of Health – have been testing potential hantavirus drugs on “miniature stem cell-based organoid models of human lungs, hearts and brains.”
Research Cuts Undermine Preparedness
However, recent funding and personnel cuts implemented by the Trump administration have affected some ongoing studies of infectious diseases, including the hantavirus, as well as the nation’s overall ability to respond to outbreaks.
Scientific American reported that the NIH cut funding last year for a pilot project “designed to better understand how hantavirus passes from rodents to humans.” The project was being conducted through the West African Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, part of a 10-center network called the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases. According to Scientific American, “All 10 centers were shuttered last year after the National Institutes of Health decided the research was ‘unsafe.’”
The administration has also cut funding for research on mRNA – a technology with proven value in developing vaccines to prevent infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Scientists in other nations, however, are forging ahead with research into potential mRNA vaccines against hantavirus.
Strong Federal Support Makes It Possible
Robust federal funding for university-based health research, advanced laboratory infrastructure, and medical education remains essential for ensuring that the nation has the scientific capacity, clinical expertise, and public health infrastructure necessary to deal with the next disease outbreak.
As Congress considers the FY27 budget, it should ensure that the nation’s universities and academic medical centers have the sustained, predictable investments they need to maintain readiness and respond to emerging threats.
Kritika Agarwal is assistant vice president for communications at AAU.