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From hantavirus to Ebola, expert urges public health messaging

New perspective calls for more measured communication amid infectious disease outbreaks

  • ‘We need public health experts, institutions and media capable of informing, educating and guiding the public in both rare, low pandemic risk infectious diseases like hantavirus, and more serious pathogens like Ebola’

CHICAGO --- In the years since COVID-19, a range of outbreaks, including a hantavirus cluster aboard the MV Hondius and renewed Ebola concerns, have highlighted the ongoing need for clear, consistent and non-alarmist public health communication, explains Northwestern Medicine infectious diseases expert Dr. Jennie H. Kwon in a new perspective piece in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“We need public health experts, institutions and media capable of informing, educating and guiding the public in both rare, low-pandemic risk infectious diseases like hantavirus, and more serious pathogens like Ebola,” co-wrote Kwon, chief of infectious diseases in the department of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. “The significant attention and frenetic news cycle focused on (the hantavirus) outbreak should remind public health officials of the need for frequent, clear and objective communication.”

The perspective piece will be published July 9. Kwon and her team are available for interviews with the media about the piece. Contact Kristin Samuelson at ksamuelson@northwestern.edu to schedule an interview.

“Coordination between governments and transportation systems, including cruise ships, is complex but imperative,” the authors say in the piece. “And ultimately, the media and public still look for expertise in individuals and institutions, despite trust in both having weakened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This small outbreak on a cruise ship required significant guidance from World Health Organization (WHO) experts.”

Some themes Kwon and her co-authors touch on in the piece include:

If hantavirus is a proxy for the ability to respond to a pandemic

“Alarm and fear were a significant part of the response. The media and some experts have generated attention by implying hantavirus posed a risk to the average American, which it did not. This may have impacted policy.”

Burgeoning threats to public health

“Scaling back research on potential pandemic pathogens and countermeasures needed for preparedness reduces our ability to respond.” 

Comparing transmission rates of COVID-19, hantavirus, Ebola, measles

“The scale and greater risk of transmission have led the WHO, appropriately, to declare this Ebola outbreak as a health emergency. However, the Andes virus outbreak that ended with 13 confirmed cases attracted equal or greater attention by the media despite posing a much smaller risk than Ebola virus disease to the population in affected countries as well as the possibility of cases in travelers.”