Chapter 1: What is hantavirus and how does it spread?
This is The Guardian. Over the weekend, reports emerged of a suspected hantavirus outbreak on a luxury cruise ship. Two cases of hantavirus have been formally confirmed after three people died in a suspected outbreak on a cruise ship off the coast of West Africa. Travelling from Argentina to the Cape Verde Islands, another four suspected cases were then identified on the MV Hondias.
The World Health Organization has now stated it believes there may be some human-to-human transmission among very close contacts, and medical personnel have boarded the ship. Human infections are rare, but the virus was also thought to be behind the death of actor Gene Hackman's wife, Betsy Arakawa, last year.
The medical investigators saying an autopsy shows 65-year-old Arakawa died of hantavirus. So what is hantavirus? How is it transmitted? And how dangerous is it? From The Guardian, I'm Madeleine Finlay, and this is Science Weekly. Professor Jonathan Ball, you're Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Tropical Disease Biology at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. First of all, what is Hantavirus?
Okay, so Hantavirus is a virus that circulates widely in rodents. There are different species of Hantavirus across all continents except Antarctica, although there may well be Some rodents live in there that could possibly have the hantavirus. I'm not sure we've extensively checked. But essentially, we can divide the hantaviruses into two main groups.
The new world hantaviruses, which mainly are found in the Americas, for example. and the old world hantaviruses, which are in places like Africa, Asia, and also Europe. The new world hantaviruses can cause what we call hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is quite a severe respiratory problem. It can really interfere with your ability to breathe correctly.
Whereas the old world ones can cause hemorrhagic fever with renal problems as well.
And so these are viruses normally found in rodents. How do humans tend to become infected?
Humans become infected when they become exposed predominantly to rodent urine or faeces, basically the rodent excretia. And particularly as it dries, it can form little particles that can become airborne and then people acquire the virus when they breathe in these contaminated particles. And anybody who is exposed to rodents regularly is at increased risk of getting a hantavirus infection.
And the WHO is now saying that human-to-human transmission on the cruise ship is likely. How rare is that?
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Chapter 2: Who is most at risk for hantavirus infection?
It's very good at stowing away on ships and being transported as humans go about their daily business. So I think one of the questions that the authorities, that the scientists will be trying to work out is how did this outbreak occur so that similar ones can be prevented in future?
And on the subject of prevention, I wonder what kind of precautions are they likely to be taking on board now to reduce the likelihood of further infection?
you will try and minimize the amount that people are mixing, but also, and I'm sure this has already happened, there'd be a process of deep cleaning the ship. So trying to make sure that there aren't areas where there is contamination. So it's all about cleanliness and then isolation. And I think the most important thing
is to be vigilant in monitoring the health of the passengers to ensure that if anybody does start to show symptoms that could be hantavirus infection, that those individuals are isolated from the rest of the ship's passenger and crew as quickly as possible.
Presumably because of the long incubation time, the people involved in dealing with this outbreak are probably expecting that there are going to be more cases coming.
Yeah, there may well be more cases. We know that the incubation period for the hantavirus can be up to several weeks and so that gives the virus a long window during which it can replicate but also potentially transmit.
So I think it's really important that the ship is allowed to dock somewhere and for the people on board to be allowed off the vessel to be tested and those who are infected to get the care and treatment that they require.
Coming up, how is Hantavirus treated and what will health authorities do now? Jonathan, are there any treatments available for those who have been infected?
There are no specific treatments for hantavirus infection that have been licensed, but there are treatments that can be used on a compassionate basis and there's some evidence that they may help relieve some of the symptoms and help prevent serious symptoms from developing.
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