4 min readJun 11, 2026 07:21 AM IST
First published on: Jun 11, 2026 at 06:20 AM IST
The months of April and May in England, where I now live, herald spring after a long, dark and wet winter. Back home in India, they signal the onset of summer. Yet, despite the colours of spring, these months revive painful memories of 2021, when Covid brought death and despair to India. Everyone lost someone. I did, too. Five years later, the world is confronting two very different infectious disease outbreaks. Hantavirus infections emerged aboard MV Hondius in early April, with 11 suspected cases and three deaths. Ebola resurfaced in Central Africa and continues to spread. These offer important benchmarks for assessing our preparedness five years after Covid.
Let us first consider early detection, surveillance and public-health infrastructure. In the case of Ebola, authorities did relatively well in early detection and surveillance, largely because the world has spent decades preparing for its recurrence. In contrast, the Hantavirus exposed surveillance gaps during unusual, low-frequency zoonotic outbreaks in complex international settings like cruise ships, especially when the pathogen is unexpected and symptoms initially resemble common respiratory illnesses.
Clinical-response capacity is the second requirement. This includes hospitals equipped to manage surges in cases, PPE and medical supply chains, clinicians, and access to intensive care and supportive treatment. With Ebola, authorities demonstrated a comparatively mature and specialised clinical-response system, largely a result of years of investment and experience. The Hantavirus outbreak revealed strong downstream hospital care but weaker front-end preparedness, particularly in recognising and managing an unexpected pathogen in an unusual setting.
Risk communication and the building of public trust were more effective in the case of Ebola because global public-health systems have spent years developing communication frameworks around it. The Hantavirus outbreak demonstrated how rapidly uncertainty and novelty can destabilise public understanding. At the same time, misinformation has not been completely absent from the Ebola response, underlining the need for strategies to sustain public trust.
The Ebola response illustrates how previous crises can create enduring scientific infrastructure. The Hantavirus, in contrast, has highlighted the difficulties of rapidly organising research around a relatively rare and less continuously funded pathogen. Coordination becomes more difficult when the contagion, its transmission setting and the governance structures involved are unfamiliar. However, even the experience of dealing with Ebola has not eliminated persistent challenges. Reports continue to emerge of shortages of PPE and disinfection materials. The Hantavirus, meanwhile, exposed vulnerabilities associated with international travel environments. Ebola governance systems continue to face political tensions and resource constraints.
The Hantavirus outbreak also revealed how many zoonotic pathogens still lack deeply developed preparedness ecosystems, particularly for unusual scenarios. It was managed largely through broader infectious-disease capacity rather than through dedicated long-term systems. Containing a disease requires a systemic approach. Success depends less on any single intervention and more on how rapidly surveillance, science, healthcare delivery, governance and public communication can function together. Covid triggered a surge in global health funding, much of it emergency-driven and insufficiently institutionalised. Since 2024-25, however, this support has declined sharply, driven in large part by cuts in US aid and the weakening of global institutions such as the WHO.
Global preparedness remains strongest against crises the world has repeatedly confronted — Ebola — and weakest against novel events such as the Hantavirus. Over time, preparedness has become deeper. It must now become broader. Yet developments since 2025 do not inspire confidence. Since Covid, awareness of pandemic risk has increased. Yet political willingness to finance preparedness has weakened. The world is scientifically more capable but financially and politically less stable in sustaining preparedness systems. If not addressed, the next outbreak involving an unusual pathogen could unfold very differently from what happened aboard MV Hondius.
The writer is a virologist and chair of Ignite Life Science Foundation (India)
