{"id":664432,"date":"2026-05-12T12:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/664432\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:41:14","slug":"experts-winnipeg-free-press-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/664432\/","title":{"rendered":"experts \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Health experts say it\u2019s not clear whether it\u2019s useful to test people who may have been exposed to hantavirus but don\u2019t have symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia\u2019s provincial health officer, says public health officials around the world are discussing the issue as passengers from a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship have returned to their home countries. \u00a0<\/p>\n

She says tests for some viruses aren\u2019t effective before patients develop symptoms and little is known about how well testing works in rare cases of hantavirus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Passengers
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPassengers are screened with a temperature scanner before boarding a plane bound for Canada, after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Arturo Rodriguez)<\/p>\n

Henry says if any of the 10 people in Canada who may have been exposed to the virus develop symptoms, health officials are ready to test and treat them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She says there are two types of blood tests for hantaviruses \u2014 one that checks for antibodies and a PCR test that detects pieces of the virus itself. \u00a0<\/p>\n

University of Saskatchewan hantavirus scientist Bryce Warner says health officials are in a \u201cunique\u201d situation because doctors wouldn\u2019t normally have any reason to suspect the rare virus until a patient is showing signs of illness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Warner, who works at the university\u2019s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, says a negative test in someone without symptoms wouldn\u2019t necessarily mean they don\u2019t have hantavirus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the incubation period can be several weeks, if you did a test in the first week and it was negative by PCR you can\u2019t just say \u2018OK I\u2019m negative.\u2019 It could take another week or two or three really for that to come up as positive,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The number of positive cases internationally has grown since the evacuation of the MV Hondius ship Sunday on an island in Spain\u2019s Canary Islands. On Monday, American and French officials confirmed two more people had Andes virus \u2014 the type of hantavirus that hit the ship and the only kind known to spread person-to-person.<\/p>\n

That brings the total number of deaths to three and cases to seven, the World Health Organization said Monday.<\/p>\n

Public health officials and infectious disease physicians have stressed that Andes virus spread between people requires close and prolonged contact and that it is not a pandemic threat. \u00a0<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from Hannah Alberga<\/p>\n

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2013 Health experts say it\u2019s not clear whether it\u2019s useful to test people who may have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-664432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}