The World Health Organization rules out the possibility of a new pandemic. Still, it admits an increase in cases of hantavirus, an aggressive respiratory virus detected on board the cruise ship MV Hondius and which has spread. One of the suspected cases involved a flight attendant from KLM airline, but she ended up testing negative.
“There is no reason to panic”this has been the main message from experts and health authorities regarding the hantavirus outbreak identified on the cruise ship MV Hondius.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, assured that, despite the seriousness of the situation, the risk to public health is considered low.
Memories of the confinement caused by COVID-19, which brought the world to a standstill, are still fresh. Therefore, this case ended up generating some alarmism. However, the Directorate-General for Health reminds us that hantavirus is not related to the coronavirus.
The general director of Health, Rita Sá Machado, explained that a “super transmitter” of COVID-19 is different from a possible “super transmitter” of hantavirus.
“A number of cases is always a more limited number of cases than what was the transmission by COVID-19. There are, at this moment, no indications that lead us to look at issues of super transmitters”, he stated.
Infectious disease specialist Jaime Nina also highlights the differences between the two viruses.
“The infection spectrum is at the opposite extreme. COVID had a low fatality rate and spread very easily. This is the opposite: it has a high fatality rate, but it spreads very difficultly. Of the dozens of known hantavirus strains, only one has demonstrated transmission between people and, even in that, it is rare”, he explained.
The cruise is currently on its way to the Canary Islands. The ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1st, heading to Cape Verde.
Since then, eight cases have been confirmed, including three fatalities and three suspected cases.
Authorities remain committed to tracing all people who may have potentially been exposed to limit the spread of the disease as much as possible.
