STAT: CDC defends hantavirus response in first major briefing - "engaged at every step" after week of muted public posture

STAT News (May 13): The U.S. Centers for Disease Control's first detailed public briefing on the hantavirus cluster came at a Wednesday May 13 press conference led by David Fitter, the agency's incident manager for the response. Fitter pushed back on critiques (including STAT's earlier May 9 'Where is the CDC?' piece) that the agency had been slow to engage publicly, saying CDC had been 'engaged at every step' since the May 2 WHO notification. The May 13 briefing also delivered the reclassification of the only previously-confirmed U.S. case to 'inconclusive' after retests run before the patient reached the Nebraska facility came back negative. Fitter: hantavirus 'is a known pathogen' and 'the risk to the general public is low.' STAT framed the briefing as the agency's substantive public re-engagement with the story.

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STAT News

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hantavirus