President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter on Friday whether he would reconsider rejoining the World Health Organization in light of the ongoing hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship.
The question came as Trump was speaking to the press on the South Lawn of the White House while departing for an event in Sterling, Virginia.
A reporter pressed the President on the hantavirus situation, beginning with asking if he had an update on the virus.
“We have it,” Trump responded. “We have very good people looking at it. It seems to be okay. They know the virus very well. They’ve worked with it for a long time.”
The president continued, “They know it very well, not easy to pass on. So we hope that’s true.”
In a follow-up question, the reporter added, “On the hantavirus– Will you reconsider leaving the World Health Organization because of the outbreak of hantavirus?”
“No, we seem to have things under very good control. They know that virus very well. It’s been around a long time,” Trump asserted.
“Not easily transferable, unlike COVID. But we’ll see. We’re studying it very closely. We have very good people studying it very closely,” he added.
WATCH:
Reporter: Will you reconsider leaving the WHO because of the HantaVirus?
Trump: No. We seem to have things under control. Not easily transferable but we’ll see. pic.twitter.com/dtdtp7emYt
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 8, 2026
The hantavirus outbreak in question occurred aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch-operated expedition cruise ship.
As of Friday, health authorities have confirmed five cases of hantavirus, specifically the Andes strain, with three deaths.
A small number of additional suspected cases have been reported, and officials note a rare instance of person-to-person transmission.
However, both the WHO and U.S. health officials have repeatedly stressed that the public health risk remains low and that this is not another COVID-style pandemic.
The virus is well-understood, primarily rodent-borne, and does not spread easily between humans.
Despite the low-risk assessment, some media outlets and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have used the incident to publicly pressure the Trump administration to rejoin the organization.
Tedros expressed hope that the outbreak would prompt the U.S. and Argentina, which also withdrew, to “reconsider,” according to a Politico report.
President Trump formally withdrew the United States from the WHO on his very first day back in office with Executive Order “WITHDRAWING THE UNITED STATES FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.”
The order read, in part:
The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states. In addition, the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO.
The withdrawal became official on January 22.
The U.S. had been the organization’s largest single funder prior to the exit.
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