Hantavirus, alarm rising. WHO: not a pandemic, but other contagions possible

The Hantavirus alarm is growing internationally, the dangerous zoonosis that has the ability to be transmitted from person to person. At the moment, the numbers are very limited: 8 suspected infected (but it could be more) with 3 dead, a Dutch couple and a German woman. While twenty-nine passengers disembarked on 24 April on the island of St Helena from the cruise ship Mv Hondius, from where the outbreak started, and now off the Canary Islands. Some of these passengers tried to reach home on their own, among them the Dutch woman, later deceased, who got off a KLM flight and may have infected a flight attendant who came into contact with her and who is now showing mild symptoms along with a French citizen. Meanwhile, the Canaries are ready to welcome the ship on Saturday, then every passenger will be repatriated. And the EU Commission to ensure 'good coordination' on repatriations, quarantines and risk communication has activated the civil protection mechanism 'from Spain' and today the details will be better defined.

So far, this is the bare chronicle of this health alert that seems to evoke not-so-distant memories of the Covid pandemic: this virus has actually been known for years and is characterised by a high lethality rate - around 30% (Sars-Cov 2 was 3%) - affecting lungs and kidneys, and a low transmission rate because contagion would only occur after long contact, as in the case of the cruise. And just yesterday, the WHO, the World Health Organisation, taking stock of the Hantavirus scare, assured that 'this is not the beginning of an epidemic', or worse 'a pandemic'. However, the UN health agency pointed out that it is possible that there will be further cases linked to the outbreak, given the virus' long incubation period of between two and six weeks. Hence the international hunt by health authorities on four continents for all those who have come into contact with the infected in at least 12 countries (there are no Italians). And to ensure timeliness, 2,500 diagnostic kits have also been sent from Argentina (where the virus has been recording cases for several years, as in Chile) to laboratories in five countries.

In a media briefing, WHO DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reviewed what had happened since 6 April, when the first patient, a man, developed symptoms and died on board the ship on 11 April. No samples had been taken and, as his symptoms were similar to those of other respiratory diseases, Hantavirus had not been suspected, the head of the health agency explained. The wife disembarked when the ship docked on the island of St. Helena and was symptomatic. But her condition deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg on 25 April and she died the next day. "Samples were taken from her, which were then analysed at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in South Africa," from which the Hantavirus was confirmed. "The third victim," says the DG, "is a woman on board the ship, who showed symptoms on 28 April and died on 2 May. Another man presented himself to the ship's doctor on 24 April and was evacuated on 27 April from Ascension Island to South Africa, where he is still in intensive care' in a condition that shows improvement.

Since yesterday, however, the concern has been the possible infection of the stewardess who was on the flight to Johannesburg with the woman who later died. The stewardess is currently admitted to the University Medical Centre (Umc) in Amsterdam and further investigations are in progress. A French citizen with 'mild symptoms' of Hantavirus is also in isolation and undergoing medical tests, after being identified as a contact case related to the second victim who flew from St Helena to Johannesburg.

Meanwhile, it seems to have been confirmed that the possible reservoir of the Andean strain of Hantavirus first contracted by the two Dutch tourists on board the Mv Hondius is an open-air dump at the entrance to Ushuaia - in Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province - in the vicinity of which birdwatchers are frequent and where the two 'zero' patients, the Dutch couple who later died, also visited. Here the Argentine Ministry of Health sent a team of investigators.