Although it may not seem like it, the situation is under control.
The trickle of cases in recent days may give the impression that the hantavirus is spreading. But all recorded cases are infections that occurred before May 2, when it was discovered that the hantavirus had stowed away on the Hondius cruise ship. As soon as it was discovered that the outbreak was due to a hantavirus, appropriate measures were taken to prevent new infections.
In the coming days and weeks, it is expected that new cases of infections prior to May 2 will emerge, not only among people who were traveling on the cruise ship but also among airplane passengers who have been in contact with people coming from the ship.
There were 88 people on the April 25 flight from Saint Helena to Johannesburg, on which a Dutch woman with symptoms traveled and who died the next day, and in which hantavirus infection was later discovered. It is very possible that infections occurred on that flight, which lasted 3,200 kilometers and four and a half hours. Some passengers had close and prolonged contact with the symptomatic patient, conditions that allow the transmission of this virus.
The Andes hantavirus is a well-known virus incapable of causing a major epidemic
Additionally, twenty-nine of the passengers on the plane had disembarked from the Hondius, so it is possible that some were infected but still asymptomatic. One of them is the man who was diagnosed with the infection after landing in Zurich, Switzerland. Other passengers coming from the Hondius flew from Johannesburg to other destinations such as Chile, the United States, the United Kingdom, or the Netherlands, where they are being monitored.
Tracing the contacts of all positive cases is what is being done now to cut the virus transmission chains. It is laborious but very effective, as has been proven in previous outbreaks of other infections.
For the Andes hantavirus, the average time between infection and symptom onset is about three weeks, and the maximum time can reach a month and a half. Considering that no measures were taken to prevent infections until May 2, the outbreak cannot be declared extinguished until mid-June. Or some time later if there is any sporadic infection after May 2.
Fortunately, it is not a virus that transmits efficiently between humans. In the largest outbreak ever recorded, which occurred in Argentina between November 2018 and February 2019, the longest transmission chains were three cases. Contact tracing and isolation of symptomatic patients, the same measures being applied now, extinguished the outbreak after affecting only 34 people, of whom 11 died.
Unlike the COVID virus, which was completely unknown when it appeared and transmitted very efficiently between people, the Andes hantavirus is a well-known virus incapable of causing a major epidemic.
