Why the Hantavirus Cruise Ship Outbreak Shouldn’t Be a Global Problem

Travel is like that closely related to the highly contagious norovirus disease often referred to as the “ship bug.”

But a ship bound for Spain’s Canary Islands has drawn international attention for a rare hantavirus outbreak that has left three dead. Despite the concerns, health officials and infectious disease experts say the risk to the general public is currently low because hantavirus is less contagious than other respiratory diseases such as the coronavirus that causes it. The covid-19 epidemic.

“This is not Covid, this is not the flu. It spreads in different ways,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemiology and preparedness and prevention at the World Health Organization. press conference Thursday.

At the meeting, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed eight cases of hantavirus among MV passengers. Hondius high-class ship, including three who died. Most of the time transmitted by rodentshantavirus can cause severe disease in humans. People often get sick from breathing in air that contains rodent droppings, urine, or saliva. But the problem that has been identified on cruise ships, known as the Andes virus, can spread between people.

Health officials in several countries are working to trace the contacts 29 people who came down the ship on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena on April 24, about two weeks after the first hantavirus death. A Swiss man who left the train early has tested positive and is being treated, and two people in the UK have tested positive. he says he is isolating himself after returning home. Six people from the US were among the people who got off the ship.

“The government is closely monitoring the situation with the US passengers aboard the M/V Hondius cruise ship with the suspected virus,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. he said in his voice on the third.

However, experts say there is no need to panic at this time.

“It’s not spreading very well, so I’m not worried about the next Covid,” said Steven Bradfute, an immunologist and associate professor at the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico. “A lot of past outbreaks of the virus have been in close quarters – people sharing beds, people sharing food, things like that.”

The virus is not easily spread through casual contact, and asymptomatic transmission – the main driver of Covid cases during a pandemic – is also low. The data available on the Andes virus show that it can be transmitted when someone is sick, Bradfute says. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, fatigue, and dizziness, which can progress to coughing, shortness of breath, and shortness of breath.

“This is very useful, because it makes it easier to track people who are at high risk,” he says, although he warns that the spread of the Andes virus is not unusual, and just because the virus has behaved in a different way in the past does not mean that it will happen again. “These diseases have been so rare that we can’t say for sure.”

One of these attacks took place from the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2019 in Patagonian Argentina, starting with a birthday party that was attended by about 100 people. Three people were responsible for the incident, which resulted in 34 deaths and 11 deaths. The research authors who tracked the outbreak in detail found that 26 out of 34 became ill after close contact with an infected person, including people who did not attend the party. Six people were exposed to the virus through saliva or aerosols.