Lessons From Hantavirus

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LISTENING: to my cat's little collar bell ring
FEELING: better as I've been fighting a cold
SEEING: my cat loaf on my laptop

Fifteen years ago, 23 horses in Australia fell ill over three months. All but one died. In previous cases where horses became sick with the Hendra virus — which attacks the heart, lungs, and brain — four humans died, too: a farmer, two vets, and a horse trainer. The virus didn’t kill anyone in 2011, yet panic ensued. One family euthanized their infected dog, Dusty. Others turned to brutal vigilantism, fatally injuring flying foxes, the species from which the virus originates.

One person, however, began to spend more time with the creatures — not to spite them but to study them. Raina Plowright, a veterinary professor in Cornell’s department of public and ecosystem health, wanted to understand why the virus was jumping so dramatically between bats, horses, and humans in the first place. As a longtime pandemic prevention expert, she knew that uncovering the spillover’s cause was the first step in stopping it. 

By 2022, her team had successfully developed a model that could not only predict when the next Hendra outbreak was most likely to occur — but also help prevent it. This concept is called “landscape immunity,” or designing thriving ecosystems with pandemics in mind. Think: a vaccine for nature. The COVID-19 vaccine makes us less likely to sneeze and cough all over others. Landscape immunity, which includes establishing protected areas and wildlife corridors, keeps animals healthier and reduces risky interactions with human communities. If adopted widely, it might just prevent the next human pandemic. 

That feels especially relevant these days as yet another virus dominates news headlines — this time, hantavirus, primarily spread through wild rodents. During moments like these, when I feel myself stiffen with anxiety, I turn to the expertise of scientists like Plowright. I interviewed her two years ago for a profile piece that never ran. (Sigh, the perks of being a freelancer.) I checked in to get her take on the latest news. Three people are dead from the recent hantavirus outbreak. At least five others have been infected. This respiratory virus doesn’t easily spread among people, so a pandemic is unlikely. But what does this tell us about our relationship to nature? About our willingness to tear down ecosystems, bringing humans and wildlife closer than ever? 

For Plowright, this event underscores how old viruses can become dangerous in new conditions. 

“Hantavirus is an example of a pathogen that spills over frequently from animals to humans but historically has not spread efficiently between people,” she said in a recent online statement. “This incident reminds us that context matters. The same virus in a different context can behave very differently.”

Reckless humans often create the very conditions that lead to our demise. Take cruise ships. We know they’re breeding grounds for disease. Yet people continue to spend money to go on them. Humans also create higher risks for exposure when we cut down forests, bringing ourselves closer to animals that carry disease. 

“The broader concern is that there are likely tens of thousands of animal viruses with some potential to infect humans,” Plowright said. “Most may currently exist in contexts where spillover is unlikely or invisible, and the right circumstances have not arisen for sustained transmission. But rapid environmental change, global travel, urbanization, ecological disruption, and changing human behavior are constantly creating new interfaces between people, animals, and pathogens. This is the central concern behind ‘Pathogen X’ — the possibility that an existing virus encounters the right ecological or social conditions to emerge suddenly as a major threat.”

That’s what Plowright works to prevent. At the root of her research is an understanding that all our crises are connected. Rising temperatures and human-induced habitat loss are disrupting wildlife in their native rainforests or woodlands. That contributes to pandemic risk. Bats, for instance, love to gorge on the nectar-rich flowers of Eucalyptus trees. When people cut down these trees, bats are forced to eat less nutritious fruit that humans plant — like mangos and figs — or non-native species like cocos palm. The creatures then forage for food closer to where domestic horses and their owners live, shedding virus as they go. 

It’s a cascade of events — infect, shed, spill, spread — ultimately triggered by people. 

“There’s this really fundamental need to change the way that we deal with problems — to be more proactive,” Plowright said to me back in 2024 before the current hantavirus scare. “That’s probably not just with pandemics. It’s with climate change. It’s with biodiversity loss. It’s with many global public health issues. There’s a pervasive part of humanity being reactive. How do we fundamentally change the way that we address problems?”

Well, long-term investments and serious cultural shifts. In a 2021 paper Plowright co-authored in The Lancet, she notes that society needs to foster a sense of biophilia, love and respect for nature, instead of biophobia, a fear or disgust of the natural world, epitomized by the individuals who tortured or killed bats during the 2011 Hendra outbreak. 

“Spillovers arise because of our severed connection to nature,” she said back in 2024. “If we truly valued the animals that host these viruses for the hard work they do keeping our world healthy — whether it is spreading pollen across the landscape or eating bugs that are agricultural pests — if we ensured that our activities did minimal harm to them, we would not need to be worried about zoonotic diseases.”

I can’t imagine a world where people valued mice and rats, but maybe that’s the problem. We need a reframing. Rodents are the base of the food chain. They sustain predators that we do respect, like snakes and hawks. They also help spread seeds by pooping them out. Even animals that we have long viewed as pests deserve safe habitats — ideally, away from people. 

That’s how we keep ourselves healthy. That’s how we prevent the next pandemic. By fortifying the homes of our more-than-human neighbors. By giving the land a vaccine, too. Otherwise, we know who will be the first to go when the next pandemic arises. Isn’t it always the Black and Brown? The ones too poor to flee to safety? The immigrants who can’t read the English advisories? 

Caring for ecosystems is caring for community. Don’t get it twisted. 🌀

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Rest in Power

While we can't say for certain that climate change led to these specific weather events (we need attribution studies for that), we do know that the Earth's rising temperatures are already creating more frequent and/or stronger disasters like these.

Since May 4, South Africa has been rocked by severe storms that have killed at least 10 people.

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Collage

Forward this to a friend who's freaking out about hantavirus and needs a lil' smooch.

- Yessenia xx