American Cruise Ship Passenger Tests Positive For Hantavirus...

Two more people - including an American - have tested positive for the deadly hantavirus as global health authorities work to ensure that any further spread of the virus is minimized.The outbreak began in April aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, the Associated Press recalled. So far, three cruise ship passengers have died, and several others have fallen ill.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 147 people on the cruise ship and about 34 of them had disembarked before the outbreak was identified. The WHO has been tracking down the passengers and people they have come in contact with. However, authorities also said that the risk to the general public was low."This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn't be scared, and they shouldn't panic," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that the virus was well-known and that there had been numerous assessments on it and its ability to spread.The WHO further stated that the virus was likely brought aboard the cruise ship on April 1 by a man who had been traveling for three months in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. The man developed symptoms on 6 April and died onboard the ship on 11 April. The case has not been confirmed as hantavirus but WHO considers it the probable first case of the outbreak.The next case involved a woman who was close to the man. She began experiencing symptoms on April 24. Her health deteriorated on April 25, on a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. She died there the next day. Tests later confirmed that she had died of hantavirus on May 4.WHO stated that by then several dozen passengers had already disembarked, with many traveling to their home countries.The Associated Press reported that the latest confirmed cases involved a French citizen and an American. The wire service reported that there were 17 Americans on board the ship and that those individuals have been evacuated from the cruise ship and are being monitored by the Center for Disease Control.CBS News reported that 15 of the 17 are headed to a federally funded quarantine unit in Nebraska. Two others were flown to the CDC in Atlanta."One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival, while other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring. The passenger who is going to the Biocontainment Unit tested positive for the virus but does not have symptoms," Kayla Thomas, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Medicine network, told the Associated Press.Ordinarily, Hantavirus only spreads through contact with rodents or their feces, the Center for Disease Control said. However, the Andes variant of the disease, which infected the passengers on the cruise ship, can be spread person-to-person.The CDC said that even with the Andes variant, human-to-human transmission usually only happens with direct physical contact or if someone spends a prolonged time with someone who is ill in close, enclosed spaces.The virus has an incubation period of 4 to 42 days. The fatality rate for people who develop respiratory issues is around 38 percent.CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told CNN's Jake Tapper that the Americans who were aboard the ship are being monitored and that the CDC was using protocols used in 2018 that contained the Andes variant of the Hantavirus.Bhattacharya confirmed to CNN that seven Americans had arrived home two weeks ago before the outbreak was recognized. He said those individuals had not displayed symptoms and were being monitored."We don't want to treat it like COVID. We don't want to cause a public panic over this. We want to treat it with the hantavirus protocols that were successful in containing outbreaks in the past," Bhattacharya told CNN.