What you need to know about Hantavirus | BBC News

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:05]You're with BBC News. As the cruise ship, the MV Hondius makes its way to the Canary Islands and in particular to Tenneref. We are going to be talking about the Hunter virus which is at the center of this outbreak on board. And a lot of people are asking us here across BBC platforms, what is this virus? How does it spread? How worried should we be that it might reach us here in the UK?

[00:00:32]Well, we're joined by our health editor, Hugh Py. We're also going to be speaking in a moment to consultant verologist at Adam Brooks Hospital and host of the Naked Scientist podcast, Dr. Chris Smith. Hugh, first of all, we're getting lots of questions from people who are understandably, possibly a little, you know, worried. Uh, break down for us what is antivirus first of all. Well, Martin, there are several groups of the virus, but the most important subgroups, one is found principally in Europe and Asia, and there can be as many as 100,000 cases a year, but that's still relatively uncommon if you look at the population of those continents. Uh, but it's not as serious as the one we're talking about here, which is seen in North and South America with a higher fatality rate. It can be really quite serious. So let's take a look at some of the symptoms and other things that we do know about hivirus.

[00:01:28]Flu-l like symptoms can lead to severe lung disease which really can get pretty unpleasant and even fatal in some cases.

[00:01:36]Then when it comes to the incubation period that's the potential for the virus to be in in a body and then get progressively worse. It can be up to eight weeks before somebody becomes symptomatic. And the issue there is how much do you have to quarantine if you're potentially exposed to the virus? Well, that's why they've come up with something of around six weeks. And the particular type of virus we're talking about here is the Andes virus, one of the havirus family. And that is seen principally in Argentina, which of course is where the cruise ship began its voyage. So Hugh, another question that people are putting to us is how does hunter virus spread?

[00:02:23]>> Well, mainly through contact with rodents. That's what it's always been associated with. Rodents droppings and then somebody getting quite close to it and inhaling viral particles which have come in vapor from rodents and and so on. But there is very rare humanto human transmission. And that's what we're seeing here with this Andes this Andes virus. And there was one previous episode a few years ago with somebody becoming infected by rodents and then passing it on to other humans. But that's one of the very few times this has happened. And that's why virus experts are really interested to try and work out how it was transmitted on the cruise ship.

[00:03:04]>> What's the treatment?

[00:03:06]There really isn't a specific treatment at all, but if it's caught early and somebody can be given something to relieve their symptoms, better hydration, maybe oxygen and other types of treatment for some sort of other viral infection that might help, but nothing specific for hivirus.

[00:03:24]>> Is this virus in the UK?

[00:03:28]potentially yes as the Europe and Asia subgroup. So we're not talking about that but it can be found and and it can be caught from rodents but doesn't tend to result in something serious for the patient.

[00:03:41]>> Stay with us you if you would. People have been asking if this uh virus could be the start of another pandemic like we saw with COVID. But on Thursday, the World Health Organization issued this reassurance.

[00:03:58]>> This is not corona virus. Uh this is a very different virus. We know this virus. Hunter viruses have been around for quite a while. There's a lot of detail that we know. I am going to ask NI to come in and say this, but I want to be unequivocal here. This is not SARS KV2. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic. This is an outbreak that we see on a ship. There's a confined area.

[00:04:19]We have five confirmed cases so far. We completely understand why these questions are coming and we are trying to provide all of the information that we can. That's why we're having a press conference here to give accurate information and we're grateful for all of those who out there who are asking these types of questions. But this is not the same situation we were in six years ago.

[00:04:40]>> The World Health Organization speaking on Thursday. Let's bring in Dr. Chris Smith. Chris, good to have you with us.

[00:04:47]How is how is Hello. How is this virus different from co?

[00:04:53]>> It's a completely different family of viruses. And although they both spread and they cause serious disease under certain circumstances, they have totally different reservoirs. In other words, this this virus is an animal virus. It's never a human virus. CO 19 is now a human virus and it spreads very well between humans but doesn't make us very unwell anymore. This virus is quite different. It's quite distinct and has a quite unique geography to it in this particular form. And that's why it has a higher mortality rate, but also is easier to control because it doesn't spread very well between humans. And we also know what the likely risk factors are that will lead to a person picking it up. COVID mutated and we got used to hearing about all the different variants that were emerging. It was pretty transmissible at times, wasn't it? So, what's to stop that happening with virus?

[00:05:46]Because this is naturally an infection of, as Hugh was saying, rodents, chiefly mice in some cases, rats in other cases, this particular subvariant is probably carried by a rat. This is not well adapted to humans. And that's why when it does very infrequently jump the species barrier and get into people and the efficiency with which it does that we think is single numbers of percent if at all then it being very ill adapted to us tends to make us very unwell but doesn't make us very infectious. It also changes or mutates only very slowly. So the likelihood of this evolving into something from this cruise ship outbreak into something that can spread efficiently between humans is really low. Now the best evidence that that's the case is that we've documented this particular family of viruses over many decades. And there have been many outbreaks including ongoing outbreaks in South America. And people do periodically get this but they don't turn it into a form that then runs away like a mine train and starts to spread out of control. So we don't think that that's a very likely outcome in this circumstance.

[00:06:54]>> The UK Health Security Agency is tracking people who may have come into contact with those on board the MV Hondius. How does that tracking work? We we all remember the um track and trace from the pandemic.

[00:07:08]The normal way to manage a situation like this is that we regard the people who have been exposed as at risk but not yet a risk because until they're symptomatic they're probably not infectious. And I say probably because obviously we do have limited experience with this particular virus and every case is an exception. You never say never medicine but a really good rule of thumb with any kind of infection like this is usually people are infectious when they're symptomatic. So the best management is to give people all the information, ask them to selfisolate for a period of time that coincides with the incubation period for this. We know what that is with these these viruses. It can be quite long as Hugh was saying, it can be up to 8 weeks in certain circumstances. So the UK HSA have settled on 45 days at the moment as the time to monitor. People during that time will be asked to look out for certain symptoms and report those. They'll also be monitoring their temperature and if they do have anything untoward having reported that they'll be tested and followed up. Samples will be processed looking for evidence of the virus. We're actually using PCR tests like we did for COVID. We'll look for the genetic material of the virus and if we find it, we can then escalate the isolation in a in appropriate facilities. We've got eight different facilities around the country which can handle high consequence infectious diseases like this one. And those people can then be properly isolated and and offered not just therefore safe uh isolation but also escalation of any medical care if that's needed.

[00:08:41]>> Dr. Chris Smith, consultant biologist at Adam Brooks Hospital. Thank you very much. Hugh, how can Hirus be prevented?

[00:08:50]>> Well, I think as we've been hearing from Chris, a lot of it is to do with the public health response with the contact tracing. In other words, if you can get to the people who might have come in contact with somebody with the virus and get them to selfisolate, then you nip it in the bug. Now, bud, now there is quite a big international effort going on now because some of the passengers left the cruise ship in the island of Selina, about 30 of them, and then went their separate ways. So, there's an attempt being made to find other passengers who are sitting very close to them on the flight and so on. And we know two Britons are selfisolating back in the UK because they came home early. They didn't even know there'd been a virus, but they reported themselves and just out of a cautious principle, they are selfisolating.

[00:09:40]But it's being emphasized that the human spread requires prolonged contact and there for example sharing a cabin or that sort of thing. So as somebody put it to me yesterday, it's got to be someone sitting next to you on a flight, not the whole airplane. Hugh, thank you very much. Well, it's been difficult to speak to passengers who are on board this cruise ship, the MV Aondius, but we wanted to get a feeling of what it's like to be on board a ship like this when an outbreak happens. You know, how much freedom do you have? Can you leave your cabin? You how much information is given to you? Well, David and Sally Abel were on board the luxury cruise ship the Diamond Princess in February 2020, which was forced to quarantine off the coast of Japan for two weeks due to a COVID 19 outbreak which infected hundreds of passengers. And they've been saying how this incident brings back memories of their experience.

[00:10:37]>> Yes, it is a little I really feel for them. Um, obviously there are not as many passengers on there as we had. It's the uh being closed in the cabin all the time and not knowing what's going on and you know people people did panic a little.

[00:10:55]>> So David, what sort of precautions were taken? What were you allowed to do?

[00:11:00]Where were you allowed to go?

[00:11:02]Well, for the first couple of days, we were allowed outside of the cabin, but once the Japanese health authorities really got involved uh on the ship, we were restricted to the cabin. Um, our food was brought to us. We couldn't have access to anywhere else on the ship at all. and the precautions. It was handwashing that was the most important part uh to try to keep the personal hygiene as good as possible, but that still didn't prevent people from going down with CO.

[00:11:43]>> David, how well informed did you feel that you were kept by the crew on board?

[00:11:47]It was very early stages in the pandemic and not a lot was known about this uh virus. Well, the Japanese health authority really took control to the extent where the captain wasn't permitted to let the passengers know fully what was going on. So, I got all my information from the internet directly with the Japanese Health Authority and I presented that um on my daily videos and sometimes two or three videos went out a day and then they had no alternative but the captain started to give us updated information and uh yeah it was very difficult because as you say nobody knew knew what this was.

[00:12:39]There was no handbook to say how you deal with it. Um, it was a fearful situation to be in.

[00:12:48]>> So, Sally, David was busy doing research. He was busy making these blogs as and I'm sure that that uh filled quite a lot of your time, David. But, Sally, how did you cope with being in this the cabin all these hours? I obviously um joined him when he actually did his filming, but um I slept a lot and I think that was my way of coping. I would just say to him, I'm I'm going to lay on the bed for half an hour and 3 hours later I'd wake up. So, um I did sleep a lot and I watched an awful lot of TV.

[00:13:25]Your advice be to then to people who are on this vessel, the MV Honduras? We had a statement from a French couple to the BBC saying that it does feel that it's under control.

[00:13:38]>> Stay calm.

[00:13:39]>> Yeah, stay stay calm and and and don't, you know, just try and and chill out. I know it's hard. you do worry, but um there's nothing else you can do >> except for taking every pro precaution you possibly can.

[00:13:56]>> David Sally, good advice and thank you very much for talking to us.

[00:14:02]>> Well, the cruise ship set off at the very beginning of April on its voyage from Argentina and made its way to the archipelago nation of Cape Verde, just off the coast of West Africa. and it was anchored there for 3 days, but it's now making its way further north to the Canary Islands and we're expecting it to arrive at in Tenneref at the weekend.

[00:14:27]And Guy Hedgeko is on the island.

[00:14:30]>> Here in Tenneref, people are awaiting the arrival of the Hondius uh cruise ship at the weekend and there is a certain amount of unease among the local population. There are many people here who are concerned because they believe that the the arrival of the boat with those nearly 150 passengers on board uh could pose a a health risk to them. Uh and they're concerned about the the safety measures uh that are in in place when when the boat is received or not in place when the boat arrives. Now the government, the central government has insisted that there will be uh very tight uh safety measures in place to make sure that the the virus does not spread to the local population. Um has said for example that the boat is not going to dock in the port but rather it's going to anchor out to sea and then the passengers will be brought uh by smaller boats to the island from where they'll be repatriated. Guy Hedgeko reporting from Tenneref and we will continue to monitor this story across BBC News.