Public officials with the University of Nebraska Medical Center have been monitoring 18 Americans — 3 of which being Utahns — that were exposed to a recent hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius cruise ship. Mara Jana Broadhurst is an infectious disease pathologist and an associated professor at the university.
“An important difference with this outbreak is that this virus is an endemic virus to South America that has been studied for decades. So, there is more information at the outset that helps us to understand how this virus is transmitted and what these risks are than what we had at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic," Broadhurst said. "This is not a virus that is transmitted easily or through casual interaction, as we have found with viruses like influenza and SARS-CoV-2."
Comparisons of the recent hantavirus outbreak to SARS-CoV-2 are numerous, but inapt. SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the respiratory disease COVID-19, is an RNA virus that spreads easily from person to person. Hantaviruses, meanwhile, are a group of viruses that generally do not spread from person to person and can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Also, there is already a hantavirus of concern in the Western United States, the Sin Nombre virus. That virus is most often associated with western deer mice, its natural reservoir, and usually spreads when people breathe in dust contaminated with infected rodent urine, droppings or saliva. The Sin Nombre Virus, like most hantaviruses, does not spread from person to person, though it is extremely serious and fatality rates range from 30 to 50 percent.
But it is quite rare, the CDC reports only 890 laboratory-confirmed cases from 1993 to 2023. Prevention of the Sin Nombre Virus involves avoiding contact with deer mice and their excrement, especially in dusty spaces, and using proper ventilation, wet cleaning methods, and proper protection (such as vinyl gloves and an N95 mask or higher), when cleaning dusty areas, such as sheds and storage units, where rodents may inhabit
That said, the virus involved in the cruise ship outbreak, though it is a hantavirus, is different. Test sequences reveal that it is a strain of Andes Hantavirus, native to South America.
“Which is reassuring that we can take lessons learned from prior infections and outbreaks and in Argentina and Chile and extend those lessons into this current outbreak," Broadhurst said.
She added, that unlike the Sin Nombre Virus, the Andes Hantavirus can spread from person to person, but only in close quarters with prolonged contact, such as the conditions on board a cruise ship. At the time of this recording, all of the 18 Americans aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship are being monitored in secure health facilities in the Eastern US and their identities have not been publicly revealed. Globally, the World Health Organization reported 11 cases linked to the cruise ship, including three deaths. However, like Broadhurst, the WHO says the global risk is low, and the CDC has said the risk of broad spread in the United States is extremely unlikely.
