Canadian tests positive for hantavirus after returning from cruise ship: BC officials

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Um, I'm Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer here in British Columbia.

[00:00:04]And this morning I want to give you an update, as we mentioned, on the four people who were isolating in Island Health here.

[00:00:13]One individual started to develop mild symptoms, including a fever and a headache, um, uh, 2 days ago.

[00:00:22]Protocols were followed to bring them and their person they were isolating with, this is the couple that were together, to a tertiary care hospital here in Victoria, where they were both assessed and tested for hantavirus.

[00:00:38]Late last evening, the BCCDC public health lab reported that the test on the individual who had these mild symptoms was positive for the Andes strain of hantavirus. We know the outer limit of the incubation period for this virus is about 42 days.

[00:00:58]I want to talk for just a minute about quarantine and isolation.

[00:01:04]I know these are words that we have heard maybe far too often over the last number of years during the COVID pandemic, and I know they can be very worrying for people to hear.

[00:01:16]Quarantine is a tool that we use where people who have been exposed to a virus, but are not sick. So, they're not at risk of transmitting to anybody else, but they may develop uh, uh, symptoms within a period of the incubation period.

[00:01:35]I know people are concerned as well about what about the people on the airplane, um, and the the we're doing the assessment. Um, so just to reassure people, infection control precautions were in place for all of that, and none of the four people had symptoms through any of that process. So, we do not consider them at risk, um, of uh, exposure.

[00:01:59]And it was more than 48 hours after that process when this individual developed symptoms. So, not consider anybody else in that process in the risk period at all.

[00:02:14]So, the patient is stable. The symptoms remain mild at this point. And they are, um, still in hospital, in isolation, being monitored, and receiving care as needed.

[00:02:29]I want to reassure everybody in BC that for most of us, the situation has not changed. We have been had very, um, we've had infection control precautions in place from the moment these people arrived in British Columbia, and I'm confident there's no additional risk that it to anybody else outside of, um, the people who've been caring for these individuals.

[00:02:56]They had no contact with the public, um, and healthcare workers are using well-established protocols that they know well that are able to protect them, to protect the other patients in the healthcare facility, and visitors, as well.

[00:03:10]So, these protocols are designed to keep the public and healthcare workers safe.

[00:03:15]And as we all know, this is not the first time our healthcare system has managed serious infections, infectious viruses, like this one.

[00:03:24]We are well prepared to respond carefully and appropriately to keep everyone safe, to support the healthcare workers who are doing an amazing job at supporting these individuals, and ensure that they receive the care they need.

[00:03:40]Once again, I know news like this can be, um, very concerning, and can cause us to think about what we went through together over the last number of years.

[00:03:50]But I want to emphasize that hantavirus is a very different virus than the other respiratory viruses that we've been dealing with like COVID, like influenza, like measles.

[00:04:02]And it remains one that we do not consider to have pandemic potential. If we look globally, there are now this with this case 11 people who have been identified. All of them were people who were on board that cruise ship for an extended period of time before the Andes hantavirus was recognized as causing illness in a number of people.