Hantavirus outbreak: Where does the disease confirm and how does it spread?

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]What exactly is hirus?

[00:00:02]>> Hiviruses are common in rodents and people can get infected with this.

[00:00:06]>> Three cruise ship passengers have now died. Others are being treated in hospital and dozens more are stranded at sea. All after catching a strain of a disease that's usually spread by rats.

[00:00:17]Health experts say there's no wider threat and the situation's under control.

[00:00:22]>> It's very unlikely that we will end up in a pandemic situation. So, where does this hand virus come from and how dangerous is it? Here's the breakdown.

[00:00:34]The MV Hondius, a luxury cruise ship that was taking around 150 people from the southern tip of Argentina to Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa until three people on board died after becoming seriously ill. Lab testing confirmed they had a rare disease called Hanta virus. Since then, there's been more suspected cases, including a British doctor and two others who've been evacuated to hospital and a man who was on the ship last month who's now being treated in Switzerland.

[00:01:06]Spain did agree to let passengers head to the Canary Islands for medical checks, but the island's leader has said no, saying public safety can't be guaranteed.

[00:01:16]So, what actually is Hivirus? It's usually spread through the saliva or excrement of infected rodents. Even dried feces is a risk because it can release tiny particles which are easily inhaled. Symptoms can take 1 to 8 weeks to show and can feel like mild flu. But phase 2 can lead to lung damage, heart and kidney failure and in the most severe cases death. Unlike a disease such as COVID, antivirus normally can't spread as easily from human to human.

[00:01:47]However, cruise ships are known for being prone to virus outbreaks. Back in 2020, COVID spread to more than 700 people on the Diamond Princess. Being in the same space for weeks, sharing buffet food, and limited medical access at sea all contribute to the risk. That's why the World Health Organization has said MV Honda's passengers could have spread Hanta virus between each other. We know typically most people are infected through contact with rodents or their saliva or droppings. But this one particular virus has been associated with some limited human to human transmission among close contacts and past outbreaks.

[00:02:23]>> Though scientists have stressed havirus isn't a global threat. What we still don't know is how or where the virus was picked up in the first place.

[00:02:35]Experts have now confirmed some passengers on the cruise ship had the Andes strain of Hanta virus which can be spread from one human to another. So what does that mean and how does it change things? Remember this ship set off from South America. There've been people in hospital in South Africa and Switzerland and a British crew member has been evacuated. So is this now a global issue? To help answer those questions, I'm going to bring in an expert on viruses. Julia Gallow is a post-doal scientist from the Perbrite Institute. Julia, thanks very much for joining us. Can you start by telling us a bit more about this virus and what the symptoms are?

[00:03:12]>> This virus called and virus is mainly found in in South America that hence the name. At the beginning, we have something called flu-l like symptoms. So something like um fever, nausea, headache, general fatigue, like a sense of unwellness. And then as the disease progresses we find uh mainly this virus cause something called hunter virus pulmonary syndrome. So the patients have difficulty in breathing mainly it can affect the heart as well. So they usually need to be hospitalized in a ICU for survival and unfortunately we don't have any treatment so there is no pre-treatment like a vaccine.

[00:03:56]>> You said there's no treatment for this at the moment. Could there be in theory a vaccine for this developed?

[00:04:01]>> Yeah, absolutely. I think at the moment it's not something that a lot of uh funding agency are focusing on because as this is a bit scary because it's something that feels like feels new. In reality, it's not new. Uh but it's rare.

[00:04:21]Uh that's why we don't hear it often.

[00:04:24]because it's rare. Uh there are maybe there is not as much investment and fundings but absolutely there are people they are looking to developing some kind of vaccine.

[00:04:36]>> This virus as we understand it is usually passed on by rats. Can you explain for us how we are in a situation now where it's in humans? How how does it transfer? What can happen is that especially in rural areas, people may come into contact with escar of rodents and then the uh for example, you can imagine if you're cleaning an old house in a in the countryside, there are escorator rodents and then you're maybe trying to throw them away or with a broom and when you move those the viruses, the particles that are in this excer becomes aosol and they can be nailed. by people and so that's mainly how the contact happens.

[00:05:21]>> So even a little bit of exposure can be a problem.

[00:05:26]>> Yeah. We don't know the level though. We don't know if how how big usually for these viruses the exposure has to be quite a high number of particles. So we don't know if it's an activity of one minute compared to activity of 1 hour.

[00:05:44]Of course, the longer the exposure, the higher the chances.

[00:05:47]>> Most people will be hearing about havirus for the first time, but this isn't it's not a new disease, is it?

[00:05:53]>> No. No. So, the name Havirus comes from the river Han in Korea. And so, the virus were found in the first time they were isolated was in 1978.

[00:06:08]>> 50 years old.

[00:06:09]>> Exactly. It seems to have been report from the 50s. Of course, it's hard because the technology we have back then to trace disease is not the same as we have today, but it might be yeah, it might they might be around at least infecting human reports for the last 70 years.

[00:06:27]>> Do we know how we went from it being in Korea to you know there being the Andes stream for example because that's quite a big distance isn't it? A very different part of the world.

[00:06:38]So when we talk about hav viruses we have different species and broadly speaking we distinguish them between old word antiviruses and new word antiviruses. So and it's a new word antivirus and hantan it's a old world antivirus.

[00:06:56]So they are different they are they didn't move around they were already in the c in different parts of the world and we believe that new world hunter viruses such as andis they cause as I described earlier a pulmonary syndrome while viruses from the old world so european Asia cause another type of disease which affects mainly kidney and the fatality rate is much much lower so we talk about 1% % for viruses in Europe to 15% to viruses in Asia.

[00:07:31]>> So they're very different. They're very different diseases.

[00:07:34]>> Yeah, the disease the outcomes are different. The diseases are different.

[00:07:39]Of course, we classify them in the same viral family because of the genome, because of the way they look like. Um but yeah, we consider them ve quite quite separately. And when we do study them, we actually usually compare one to the other because we want to understand why viruses that belong to the same viral family have such different outcomes in in humans. In >> the specific case of this cruise ship, then how could this have happened?

[00:08:08]>> One of the leading scenarios that we are imagining is that people were traveling in the in area where and is could be found. So Argentina um although my understanding is that the specific area I think they were in Oshua so but you can imagine they were in an area where the virus is endemic and we don't know what the type of tourism they've done but if they went to rural area or where the the virus might be present they might come into contact with it and then went back to to the ship and the virus the disease takes some time to develop. So it is believed between 1 to 8 weeks. So we could imagine that we are just seeing it now because it takes a bit to to start. Um that's the most likely scenario.

[00:08:58]>> Can you talk us through what the process is when someone is evacuated in this instance from the ship? What then happens from a medical standpoint? My understanding is that of it's it can be quite scary because of course doctors that are going to pick up patient have to be completely isolated to protect themselves. So in hazmat suit. So they would they would take the patient probably I would assume by plane from the ship to the hospital and then the patient will straightly be put in ICU.

[00:09:30]As I said earlier, the patient cannot when the disease has progressed, they cannot breathe on their own anymore. So they would just be attached to a respiratory support machine and just just wait out see how the disease progress >> and would they be kept separate the infected patients? Yeah.

[00:09:52]>> Yeah, absolutely. So probably they have usually in hospitals as you might know there are certain there is a certain list of diseases they have to be declared to the government when people contract them both a v viral and bacteria um and hospitals are built so they have separate rooms where pe where isolated from of course isolated from other patient but also they require nurses and doctors to attend these people to to change their clothes to have a very um different pipeline how we treat the waste as well. Uh so that we are sure that no one is going to get into contact with these people. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:39]>> For the passengers on the cruise ship though, how scary do you think this is for them?

[00:10:44]I imagine I would I would be scared especially uh I've been working on antiviruses in the past so I kind of don't know but as you said if it's something that feels I never heard about this before it adds another level of fear >> and given how much attention this is getting people might be seeing the news seeing this story they might have holidays booked coming up on cruise ships and be worried now about going on them what would you say to those people >> to my knowledge this is the first time in as long as been working in this field that this happens.

[00:11:18]So I think the chance is very very low.

[00:11:22]It's very very scary but it's the same as being afraid of flying on a plane.

[00:11:27]It's very scary because when if something bad happens it's very very bad. But if you think about the number of planes and the number of trips that are done daily the ch the normalization with them it's very very low. We've all obviously still got COVID in the back of our minds. How much of a role do you think that's playing in making people more worried about this?

[00:11:49]>> I think that plays a very big role.

[00:11:53]During COVID, we had the kind of similar scenario where we had this cruise ship that was uh stranded with people getting infected and I think that's very much in the back of people's mind. So, antiruses are nothing like corona viruses. Uh it seems scary because it there seems to be some suggestion that this virus can spread human to human which is what COVID does. But they are very very different viruses and it's very unlikely that we will end up in a pandemic situation with a virus like this.

[00:12:28]>> I wonder if I can ask you Julia if you were on that ship now as a passenger what would you be doing?

[00:12:33]>> Yeah, I would think I will isolate myself. I would probably use uh I mean what the solution we used for co like washing our hands that still works with every virus. So probably I would do a lot of that like washing keeping everything clean uh being sure that I stay as much distance to from other people as I can maybe ventilate the environment if I can.

[00:12:57]>> What was your initial reaction when you heard about this story of the outbreak on the ship? I was very surprised because as I said I worked on these viruses uh before and not anymore nowadays and in all the time I've been working on them it was for five years five years ago this never happened something like that so I was surprised that there was an outbreak because it's such a rare event to hear about ha viruses so yeah I think I was I was surprised and curious of course because I know about these viruses and I think worried for the people that are there because it's it's probably I imagine it's very difficult for them >> and obviously not just the outbreak but for there to be you know multiple deaths sadly as well.

[00:13:44]>> Absolutely. Yeah, that's the scare that's that's absolutely scary. I yeah it's for for us scientists it tells us something and hopefully we will learn from what we are observing but it's the hopeful situation the an awful situation and I wish we could learn in a different way than this >> and can you give us a sense of how you know medical science has evolved over time are we are we better at doing this now >> I I'm pretty sure we are I mean I think uh the pandemic was awful but I think hopefully we are learned a lot how to deal with something that we suspect is a respiratory transmitted disease and we are learn a lot about how to treat people what what matters how we how we deal with the media how we deal with this how much people are scared and how we tweet medical stuff that's also something very important and I think there is better understanding of what might be happening there and what is expected from us as a societ as a society. Okay, Julia, thank you very much for your insight there. Really interesting. Thanks a lot, Julia.

[00:15:00]>> You're welcome.

[00:15:02]>> That's the breakdown. Thanks for watching. See you next time.