Third person being monitored in Peel Region for hantavirus

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]ing us now is infectious disease specialist Dr. Suman Chakabardi. Dr. Chakabari, thanks for being with us.

[00:00:05]>> Great to be here. Thank you.

[00:00:06]>> We just heard and I'm not sure if you heard or not, so I want to get your reaction that Ontario's health minister Sylvia Jones just revealed to a little bit earlier that a third person in Peele region north of Toronto is being monitored, is now in isolation as a result of what we are assuming uh is close contact or or in some regards.

[00:00:23]Does that make sense to you that they are likely because there are two more in that same region that they likely were in contact with someone who was either on board the ship or who were again at least at this point in contact with someone related to this outbreak.

[00:00:36]>> Yes, exactly. I mean with the the work of the investigation that's been happening, you expect to some uh extent you're going to find people and this is I think what's been going on here. Uh and you know these people it's very clear you have to be very important to say that they're not individuals who are having symptoms necessarily. they're being monitored if they develop symptoms and this is exactly what the protocol entails. And how difficult is it to, you know, we spoke to our our reporter Andy Bersron Oliver earlier today about the incubation period of antivirus, right?

[00:01:04]We're talking about up to eight weeks, which can be very significant. It can take a number of weeks for for symptoms to start showing up at least at points.

[00:01:11]And then also our understanding is about testing too as well that it may not make sense early on if people are exposed.

[00:01:17]Give me your thoughts on on just how difficult that can be compared to something again like CO 19 where it was only a matter of days.

[00:01:24]>> Yeah, that's a really really good point.

[00:01:25]We have to also remember that this is a relatively rare type of infection. So we are still learning from it. And when you have such a long incubation period, uh you have to be careful that you have to watch people for the entire time. Early negative tests, uh you have you have to kind of have a bit of skepticism towards that. So we're learning more. I think the protocol is very important monitoring individuals. There may be a period a short period where people are um uh able to spread the virus even when they're not symptomatic but for the most part this is something that while it is able to spread from person to person this strain it's not like co it can't do it to the same extent but again we're learning and all the precautions are being taken.

[00:02:07]>> We know that viruses evolve that they are always different and we were talking about initially when we learned about this deadly outbreak uh that it was very rare for hivirus to be spreading personto person. However, it feels like that's become much more prevalent in particular with this strain. Um, is that concerning to you at all at this point?

[00:02:24]Is that just a natural evolution to of a virus over time in particular? But, you know, what are your thoughts on on that part of this in particular?

[00:02:32]>> Yeah, with this virus in particular, you're absolutely right. Most of the other hunter viruses do not transmit from person to person. This strain just happens to you. And it looks like the uh viral sequence of this, the DNA sequence is pretty much the same. It's a little bit different, but I'm not worried about this really changing uh in in a major extent turning into something like a pandemic virus. But again, what we are seeing, we do know from previous outbreaks that this can have a persontoerson spread. And that is exactly the type of assumption that we're making when we're doing the protocols to monitor people and to isolate them as they come back home.

[00:03:07]>> And we know known about antivirus for for a number of years too, right? I think going back to the '9s and being aware at least of it right now. How in in your opinion does something like this happen? Is it a lack of health inspectors in order to you know especially on a cruise ship in particular? Was it a result possibly of of someone being infected in Argentina before the ship even departed possibly too? You know, what are your thoughts? I get at least on the initial part of this as we talk about how this virus was able to initially start before it started to spread.

[00:03:34]>> You know, the the expression that I like to use this was just a perfect storm. We know that these types of things exist in the environment. people are traveling different types of tourism and then getting onto boats or you know going to a party. These outbreaks happen. It's not just haunt virus. It can be many many different types of infectious pathogens. This is partially why uh things like epidemiology exist. So in something like this I don't think it was a failure of anything. I in fact if anything they were able to identify it fairly quickly once they saw uh you know two deaths on on the on the ship. But again these things happen sporadically.

[00:04:05]That's why we study them. But uh I don't think this was a failure of any system at all.

[00:04:09]>> Okay. Dr. Suan Chakabardi, infectious disease specialist. Appreciate your time today, sir. Thanks so much for this.

[00:04:15]>> Absolutely.