EXCLUSIVE | Physician-Scientist Dr Steven Quay Told Times Now Digital This Hantavirus Outbreak Appears Less Severe Than 2018

Physician-scientist Dr Steven Quay, who has been actively tracking and tweeting about the ongoing hantavirus developments, spoke exclusively to Times Now Digital about the outbreak, fears around human-to-human transmission, and why he believes the current situation is still more contained than the deadly 2018 Argentina outbreak.Dr Quay, who was also widely followed during the COVID-19 pandemic for his commentary and analysis, believes the outbreak deserves serious attention, but not panic.Q. How do you currently see the overall hantavirus situation?A. This is a serious but still contained outbreak: low risk to the general public, but high consequence for those exposed, and it deserves careful monitoring without panic.Q. Do you believe there

is an urgent need for deeper study of hantavirus, particularly the Andes strain, given its potential for human-to-human transmission? Is there anything about the current situation that concerns you?A: Yes, Andes virus is the one hantavirus that can rarely transmit person-to-person, and the concern is not mass spread but whether we understand the exposure chain, incubation window, and early diagnostic markers well enough.

Q. Reports have now emerged about a suspected ‘third-generation’ hantavirus case involving an Italian passenger who reportedly sat near a woman on a Dutch KLM flight before she died and has since developed symptoms. Is the way the virus appears to be behaving surprising to you in any way?I would be very cautious here: that suspected Italian case has reportedly tested negative, so I would not call this third-generation transmission unless laboratory confirmation establishes it. This outbreak looks better than the 2018-2019 outbreak in terms of cases and speed of response.Q. Does the relatively long incubation period make it difficult to determine with certainty who may or may not be virus-free?A. Yes, the long incubation period is exactly why public health officials are using extended monitoring and quarantine; absence of symptoms today does not always prove absence of infection.”Q. In your view, is this outbreak behaving differently in humans compared to the 2018 Argentina outbreak?So far, this looks smaller and more contained than the 2018–2019 Argentina outbreak, but the cruise-ship and international-air-travel setting makes contact tracing much more complicated.