Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now, following the cruise ship Hantavirus outbreak, many of us are hearing about this disease for the first time. Rare, serious, still largely unknown to the public. It has raised fresh questions about the symptoms, about how it spreads and the risk that it carries.
Well, joining us now to separate fact from fear and fiction is Christine Loescher, who's the head of the School of Biotechnology and professor of immunology at Dublin City University. And you're very welcome. Thank you for coming in. So I think as this whole thing has progressed, people have become more and more fearful of this thing.
Chapter 2: What is Hantavirus and why is it in the news?
And we are constantly reassured by the World Health Organization that this is not a pandemic. It's not like COVID, but still people are worried. Can you understand that, first of all?
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, you know, COVID is still like it's not that distant in our memories. And I think the last time we've heard of a virus that we never heard of before was And we saw what happened afterwards. So we've never heard of hantavirus. It's not been discussed.
Chapter 3: What are the symptoms and risks associated with Hantavirus?
It's not a virus that affects, you know, European countries. It's something that's kind of much more further afield. And I think the idea of it happening on a cruise ship is also kind of laced with memories of COVID. So I think it's completely understandable that people are concerned. They're asking questions about
And because it's a virus we haven't heard of before, I think that's really, like, you know, driving people's concern. I think the other reason why people are concerned is that we do know that the mortality rate or the death rate with this virus, you know, can be very high for individuals. You know, it can be up to 40%.
So it's in lots of ways, even though it's a virus that doesn't really transmit very well between humans, it means that if somebody is infected, they can get really, really seriously ill. Okay. Now, I will caveat that with the fact that the people who have got hantavirus from the cruise that have had medical attention, they're all stable.
And actually, it's the people who contracted it quite early when they didn't know it was hantavirus and probably didn't have access to the right kind of medical care on a cruise ship they're the people who've passed away. So I think it's really important that medical care at the right time is a really big preventative piece.
But it is just dealing with the symptoms, isn't it? That is the treatment. There's no treatment for the virus itself. It's the symptoms that are being dealt with.
Sure. And I mean, at late stage, when somebody gets very ill with the virus, it's really a respiratory and a cardiac issue. So it's really oxygen support and ICU care that somebody would get when they become very sick. So there isn't a specific antiviral, there isn't a vaccine, there isn't a specific treatment, but really good respiratory care is really the focus.
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Chapter 4: How does Hantavirus spread and what are the concerns?
Now, there's a report this morning that suggests that the 19th of May could be crucial because of the incubation period. Do you agree with that, that we'll have a fair idea where we're at by then?
I think it's going to be closer to the end of May. I think that, you know, we have to understand that, you know, when people, the earlier cases on the cruise ship, you know, they were dealt with in a way that maybe they just deal with the normal virus on a cruise ship. They didn't know what they were dealing with.
So it's really hard to try and get a handle on what the level of exposure of the rest of the passengers were on the ship and what the last time of exposure is. The way the HSE are dealing with this under the kind of guidance of the WHO is that they're taking the start of May as the last potential time of exposure and they're exerting caution and saying it's 42 to 45 days from there.
in terms of quarantine and in terms of ongoing monitoring of the patient.
So while the 19th of May takes into consideration, I think they're really basing that on previous outbreaks where the incubation time has been about 28 days and that might be the case in this situation, but the fact that it can incubate for up to 45 days and because we've just come out of a pandemic and because we know the mortality rate is really high if somebody gets it, I think there's been a lot of caution exerted here
And I think understandably so, not just for the people involved, but also I think public concern and public perception is really playing into this.
There's a lot of questions now around transmission. And there's a Harvard University professor, Joseph Allen, quoted in this piece that mentions the 19th of May. And he's concerned that some of those infected had not had close contact with patient zero, that they just crossed paths with this person. That's scary for people to hear.
Yeah, and I think, you know, again, we don't know the situation on the cruise ship in terms of what were they exposed to that potentially could have been touched or had a bodily fluid on it from somebody else. So what did they share in terms of buffets at food time? What happened in terms of them interacting with one passenger who was close contact with somebody else and then...
You know, it really is to do with how things are transmitted. And while close contact is the mode of transmission for Hantavirus, particularly the Andes one, which is the only one that can transmit from human to human. It doesn't mean that a health care worker or a doctor or somebody who was in close contact with the person, if they haven't used infection control precautions sufficiently.
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Chapter 5: What medical care is available for Hantavirus patients?
I think it's caught us by surprise because it's a rare event and it doesn't normally happen outside of South America where the virus is endemic.
But are you saying we might see more of this in the future then?
I mean, you can't rule out that there is going to be exposure of people to viruses as they start to travel to, I mean, these people were travelling, you know, they were going to remote islands, they were going to You know, bird sanctuaries, they were going to places that are outside of the norm in terms of travelling.
So maybe we need to think that as we travel more, we need to be more conscious of exposure to viruses that maybe just haven't been in general circulation. This is probably the first outbreak of Hantavirus outside of those countries. endemic places.
There's no rush to create a vaccine or to look at new treatments is there?
No I don't think so and I think that that's I think whatever about a rush to a vaccine I definitely think that there might be a push towards looking at whether or not there's a specific antiviral or some sort of treatment that might help in a subset of viruses that cause this type of you know respiratory pulmonary kind of you know dysfunction or failure in people. So it might prompt that.
I mean, I thought it was interesting that somebody on News Talk yesterday was talking about the fact that there's been a little spike in the cost of the shares for some of the pharma companies, and they think it's coming off the back of people saying, I wonder, will there be a drive to kind of create new treatments for viruses? And you can't rule that out.
But I think it does highlight the fact that there are still viruses out there that we have no defence against.
Christine, thank you very much. It's very interesting. Christine Loescher there. Thank you. The Clare Byrne Show. With Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
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