Experts are disproving claims that the name hantavirus comes from a Hebrew word meaning "nonsense.".

Similar misinformation to that circulated during the COVID-19 pandemic surrounding the deadly outbreak of a rare hantavirus on board a cruise ship in the Atlantic continues to circulate online. Specifically, it is claimed that the name of this rodent-borne disease comes from a Hebrew word meaning "nonsense." Experts told AFP that such a word does not exist in Hebrew. Hantavirus is named after the Hantan River in South Korea, where the first major outbreak was recorded in the 1950s.

«"We don't need to be afraid of the virus because 'hanta' means 'nonsense' in Hebrew," says Dharma Pongrekun, a former candidate for governor of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, in an interview posted on YouTube on May 15, 2026.

In the video, which has received more than 200,000 views, Dharma also describes hantavirus as a "global program" to sell vaccines—echoing language he used at an earlier political event where he falsely claimed COVID-19 was a hoax pandemic.

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