Hanta Virus - All you need to know‼️

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey, hello everyone. So, recently over social media I have seen this apprehensive posts and videos about a pandemic in progress. So, when I delve to deeper into this topic, I found that there has been a current outbreak of Hantavirus in May 2026 on the cruise ship MV Hondius sailing from South America to Tenerife, which has resulted in at least three deaths. So, let us delve deeper into this topic.

[00:00:26]Hantaviruses is a family of virus that are primarily spread by rodents like rats and mice. Although this disease might have existed for centuries, the virus was scientifically isolated in 1978 when during the Korean War more than 3,000 soldiers fell ill with this virus. As an aftermath of this incident, further scientific research was carried out and Dr. Ho Wang Lee successfully isolated this virus from the lungs of a striped field mouse caught near River Hantan in South Korea and hence this virus derived its name as Hantavirus.

[00:01:03]See, most types of Hantavirus do not have the ability of human-to-human transmission. But coming over to the 2026 outbreak, it is more concerning because it has certain Andes Hantavirus strain, which is the only strain that has the ability of human-to-human transmission. Now, the question is how do Hantavirus spread? It is mainly through vectors like rats and mice, which belong to the rodents family.

[00:01:29]Normally, it is spread by a direct contact, contaminated food, bites and scratches, and inhalation of rodent feces. But talking about this specific strain of Andes Hantavirus, it spreads from people to people by a direct contact and bodily fluids.

[00:01:44]So, from this we can infer that people involved in cleaning activities, the farmers, the foresters, and the campers are more at a risk of contracting this virus. Now, talking more about this virus, there are mainly two main illnesses involved in it. One that affects the lungs and the other that affects the kidney. And the early symptoms of it mimic that of a common flu like high fever, nausea, headache, fatigue and dizziness, vomiting, muscle aches, etc. Which makes early diagnosis very difficult. Because if a person is showing such symptoms, normally what would we think? It would be just a common flu and let us leave it all together, which is not the case. Because Hantavirus then develops into complicated problems which can even lead to death.

[00:02:29]Because of these reasons, scientists believe that this virus can have high fatality rate even though it has less transmission rate. So your next question would be, would this be another COVID-19 or would this result in another lockdown period or quarantine? Right now, the answer to your question is no. Because WHO has classified the global risk level of this virus as comparatively low because it has less transmission rate, low contagion, and specific rodent host, which makes it potentially less dangerous than the other pandemic that we have seen.

[00:03:03]Now, what is the way forward? Let me tell you that as of now, there is no treatment or cure for this virus. The immediate outbreak response to this was controlled evacuation, active monitoring, quarantine and ship disinfection. And long-term strategy includes preventive techniques like safe cleaning, rodent proofing, and awareness. Medical experts emphasize that survival rates increase significantly with early hospitalization, oxygen therapy, and in severe cases, ECMO. That is extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

[00:03:36]So the scientists are still researching on this particular strain. So let's wait for more updates. Till then, stay safe, stay healthy. Thank you.