Hantavirus

The recent outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise-ship has brought this incurable disease into the forefront of the news. I first heard about hantavirus in the mid-1990s when there was an regional outbreak in the Navajo Nation in the southwest United States. This outbreak involved the deaths of three young healthy Navajo runners. It took some work, but epidemiologists determined that hantavirus was the caustive agent. The people has inhaled the virus from mouse feces.

Turn the clock back to the Korean War when a bunch of U.S. soldiers hied of a mysterious disease. Again, epidemiologists with a lot of work determined that the causative agent was hantavirus, spread by mice. The big and disturbing aspect of hantavirus is that there is no vaccine or cure, and the death rate is over 40%.

Now in 2026 there is an outbreak on a cruise ship and was being spread from human to human. How could this happen? It turns out that there is a strain of hantavirus in southern Argentina that can be spread from human to human. This strain is called Andes virus.

Two birdwatchers caught it in Argentina and brought it onto the cruise ship. Then the localized outbreak occured.

Here’s the problem though. The incubation period is close to 40 days. How many people disembarked in Tristan da Cunha and St. Helena? Additionally how many other birdwatchers were involved with the two on the ship? And, if involved were they Argentinians or did they fly home? All interesting questions.

The cruise ship was the perfect incubator, for a local spread.

Will this evolve into a pandemic? Doubtful, even though some people are worried that this is too similar to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that we all lived through.

More later…