What we know about the cruise ship hantavirus
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What is the background of the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak?
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It's been a long ordeal for those who embarked on a cruise across the South Atlantic in early April, and it's not over yet. Ships' passengers are being repatriated across the world after potential exposure to hantavirus, which caused the death of three passengers. Among those heading home are four Australians, who will soon be placed in a quarantine facility in Western Australia.
How did the hantavirus spread among cruise ship passengers?
Today, epidemiologist Rainer McIntyre from UNSW on everything you need to know about Hantavirus. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
Raina, I want to start where this virus outbreak began because it will give us a real sense of how dangerous it is and how widely it can spread. A cruise of a lifetime tainted by a deadly outbreak.
Almost 150 passengers were on board the MV Hondias, including four Australians. Three people have been confirmed dead so far.
Passengers are being evacuated from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak after it was finally able to dock at the Spanish island of Tenerife.
On Monday local time the final passengers were evacuated with officials from the World Health Organisation overseeing the operation.
Because of the interaction while they were still in the ship we would expect more cases.
What are the symptoms and dangers of hantavirus?
Now it's thought the initial victims, a couple from the Netherlands, may have contracted the virus at a rubbish dump in Argentina. What do we know about that?
We can't say definitively where they acquired it. On probabilities, it's likely they picked it up in Argentina because they'd actually... been travelling around Argentina but also Uruguay and Chile since November.
How is hantavirus transmitted from animals to humans?
But when you look at the incubation period of the virus and the husband got ill on the 6th of April, that's when he started feeling unwell, the likelihood is that he picked it up somewhere in Argentina and there's been speculation about a rubbish tip on the island where the cruise set off but the local health authorities have denied it.
And by the way, that rubbish tip, just to explain that, is a bird watching area. So that's why people would actually go there. A hantavirus, it has been detected, hasn't it, in Argentina before? There has been an outbreak there.
Yes. In fact, Argentina is one of a small handful of countries that has the Andes variant of the hantavirus, which is the only one that's documented to spread from human to human. Right. And the incidence of hantavirus seems to have been going up last year. So there was an uptick in cases and outbreaks last year, which was a bit of a warning sign that this could be a risk for travellers.
And it's a virus spread by rats. Just explain that.
Yeah, so hantaviruses typically are first spread from rats to humans through their excreta, both urine and faeces, and those can get aerosolised in dust particles and so on and breathed in, or occasionally from touching contaminated stuff, but usually it's thought that it's breathed in. It occurs around the world, but the European and Asian cases of hantavirus are a different category.
What measures are being taken for the repatriation of affected passengers?
hantavirus and they're not as severe. It's the Andes virus that causes the most severe illness.
Right. And as you said, that can spread between person and person. Is that close contact is needed or how is that transmitted?
It's spread through the air, through respiratory aerosols. So it's inhaled. We don't have data to say, you know, close contact. Certainly the last big outbreak of Andes hantavirus in 2018, which was also in Argentina, was
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:25
2
What is the background of the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak?
0:25–1:16
3
How did the hantavirus spread among cruise ship passengers?
1:16–2:23
4
What are the symptoms and dangers of hantavirus?
2:23–2:48
5
How is hantavirus transmitted from animals to humans?
2:48–4:19
6
What measures are being taken for the repatriation of affected passengers?
4:19–4:51
7
How does Australia plan to manage the quarantine of returning passengers?
4:51–7:00
8
Why is the hantavirus outbreak not expected to lead to a pandemic?
7:00–15:55