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NEW YORK (AP) — Hantaviruses do not spread easily between people, which makes health officials confident the recent outbreak on a cruise ship that has
killed three people will not turn into an epidemic. But, still, they need to make sure. So health officials in several countries are contact tracing: trying to identify and follow people who may have come in contact with passengers who got sick or died.
Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. While human cases are rare, small outbreaks have been documented around the world. However, the Andes virus implicated in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Viruses can change, and scientists are working diligently to learn more about the virus, including whether it has mutated and how exactly it spreads.The goal of contact tracing is to alert people who might have been exposed, keep tabs on them in case they exhibit symptoms, and prevent them from spreading it to others. This process is challenging due to the social and mobile nature of individuals who frequent crowded places and travel. In the cruise ship outbreak, fewer than a dozen people are thought to have shown any symptoms, and there have been only five confirmed cases, but many more may have been exposed.
About 140 people remain on the cruise ship headed for the Canary Islands, where they will disembark, and none has been reported to be sick. However, authorities are trying to reach the dozens of people who left the ship about two weeks after a passenger died, but before authorities knew a hantavirus was the culprit. Those individuals came from at least 12 different countries, including several states in the U.S., such as Arizona, California, Georgia, and Texas, according to infectious disease experts and state public health officials.
Authorities in St. Helena, the remote British territory in the South Atlantic where passengers disembarked, stated they are monitoring a small number of individuals considered 'higher-risk contacts.' These individuals are being advised to isolate for 45 days, according to the St. Helena government. British health officials reported that two passengers who flew home midway through the journey are self-isolating but do not exhibit symptoms. The U.K. Health Security Agency noted that a small number of contacts of these two individuals are also self-isolating without showing symptoms.
In Singapore, health authorities are monitoring two men who disembarked at St. Helena and then flew to South Africa before returning home. The two men, who arrived in Singapore at different times, are being tested for hantavirus and are isolated at the country’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, officials confirmed.
The U.S. government has provided few details regarding its contact tracing efforts. Texas officials indicated that public health workers have reached the two individuals who left the ship on April 24, stating they are not experiencing symptoms and did not have contact with a sick person while aboard. They committed to monitoring themselves with daily temperature checks and to contact public health officials at any sign of possible illness.
Arizona officials reported that they are also monitoring a person who disembarked, although they do not know exactly when the individual arrived in Arizona. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the state health agency on May 5, which initiated monitoring that will continue for 42 days. Additionally, two Canadians who disembarked are in Ontario and have been advised to self-isolate since returning home, as stated by the province’s health minister.
Apart from tracking individuals, scientists are striving to understand the Andes virus better. This virus, a member of the hantavirus family found in South America, may be one of the rare hantaviruses capable of spreading between humans. Officials in Argentina suspect that the first cases may have been contracted during a birdwatching trip in the southern city of Ushuaia. Although Argentina’s Health Ministry has yet to dispatch a team, scientists from the state-funded Malbrán Institute plan to travel to Ushuaia in the coming days, as reported by the ministry.
Researchers are analyzing the virus's genetics to determine if it has changed in a way that enhances its transmissibility. They are also attempting to clarify how it spreads, according to Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. It is believed that individuals are primarily infectious when they exhibit symptoms, and if the virus spreads, it may be transmitted through small liquid particles expelled from an infected person during talking, coughing, or sneezing.
AP journalists Isabel Debre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa; Rob Gillies in Toronto; Jill Lawless in London; Suman Naishadham in Madrid; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
