Raina MacIntyre

That was a clade two outbreak.

And this has just been characterised as clade three.

That outbreak in Argentina in 2018, there were 34 cases and there was very clear evidence it was spread through the air.

also became ill that's correct from what i've read the captain assumed it was all you know he was advised it was a non-infectious death and he made an announcement to the passengers that someone had died and that it you know it was from non-infectious causes good morning everybody i'm told by the

He did not raise the possibility of an infectious disease and so a whole lot of passengers condoled with the widow who was potentially, you know, incubating the illness or had infection already.

So the Andes virus causes pneumonia and cardiac complications as well.

So it's a cardiorespiratory syndrome.

It's called Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

It's quite severe and, you know, people have difficulty breathing, but you can also get fluid on the lungs and it's severe enough to cause death in anywhere from 30% to 50% of people with it.

I think we can expect to see more cases popping up in the next couple of weeks, possibly, you know, even in the next month or two.

Because remember, there's been

Other people who've been exposed more recently during medical evacuations and so on, such as in South Africa, there's been healthcare workers, paramedics, passengers on aeroplanes, because some of the people who got infected were on commercial airlines, including the Swiss patient went back to Switzerland and then heard about it on the news.

And

presented with symptoms.

With any travel-related outbreak, there's always the possibility of dispersal around the world.

And the other interesting point is that the cases that tested positive in the US and Spain were asymptomatic at the time they tested positive.

You know, it's not a super common disease like influenza or COVID, so we don't have

as much research about it, but from what's known, we can't rule out asymptomatic transmission, which makes the whole outbreak control a bit more difficult if that's a factor.

Look, from the time they were potentially exposed, I think it covers the majority of the incubation period.

Occasionally you can get a longer incubation period, sort of up to eight weeks.