In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials struggled to impress upon the public the grave risks associated with the disease, as well as how easily it could spread.<\/p>\n
Now, six years later, public fears have surrounded another type of virus that has killed and sickened passengers on a Dutch-flagged cruise ship, including four Californians who were exposed to the virus and recently returned to the United States. This time however, officials are taking a very different approach to messaging surrounding the deadly Andes virus \u2014 a type of hantavirus.<\/p>\n
While officials and infectious disease experts have been quick to note the seriousness of the rodent-borne disease, they have also stressed key differences between hantavirus and COVID-19. Namely, that this virus is far less transmissible. <\/p>\n
Public alarm over the illness began to grow following reports that three passengers died aboard the stricken vessel, MV Hondius. Worries grew further over the weekend when officials announced that 18 U.S. cruise passengers had disembarked and were returning home. <\/p>\n
On Monday the California Department of Public Health said during a media briefing that four Californians had been exposed to the virus, but none had contracted it. Three of them were cruise ship passengers, while the fourth was a Sacramento resident who was on a plane with an infected person in South Africa.<\/p>\n
As of now, all four individuals lack symptoms and appear healthy, according to Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health. <\/p>\n
One passenger, a Santa Clara resident, disembarked the cruise before the outbreak was recognized and returned to California, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis person was reported to our department last week and is being monitored by the local public health department where they live,\u201d Pan said. \u201cThe other two passengers disembarked over the weekend in the Canary Islands and have been flown\u201d to a bio-containment facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.<\/p>\n
The individuals in Nebraska are undergoing a health assessment, and federal authorities will determine when they can return to California.<\/p>\n
Of the total U.S. cruise ship passengers, sixteen boarded a medical repatriation flight arranged by the U.S. government to Nebraska and have remained there as of Monday, including one person who tested \u201cmildly\u201d positive for hantavirus \u2014 that person is staying in biocontainment at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. <\/p>\n
Two other passengers, one of whom is showing symptoms of the virus, traveled to Atlanta and are staying in a biocontainment facility at Emory University. <\/p>\n
That brings the total number of cases of hantavirus to nine, seven laboratory confirmed and two probable cause, including three deaths. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s reasonable for people to be concerned about this latest outbreak, said Dr. Nicole Iovine, chief medical epidemiologist and an infectious disease expert at the University of Florida Shands Hospital. Photographs of healthcare personnel in full personal protective equipment assisting cruise passengers are likely to spark recollections of the pandemic. <\/p>\n
Even though this is not an easily transmitted disease, it is transmissible and has a high mortality rate, Iovine said. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said 38% of people who develop respiratory symptoms from hantavirus may die from the disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s reasonable for the medical personnel to take maximal precautions so that they don\u2019t contract it,\u201d Iovine said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a reflection of [the virus] being extremely contagious.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the U.S., hantavirus cases occur year-round and are transmitted via the urine, feces and saliva of wild rodents. <\/p>\n
The Andes virus, a strain of the disease that\u2019s endemic to Argentina, similarly passes from the exposure of wild rodent particles. Infected humans can transmit the virus to other people. <\/p>\n
Unlike other infectious respiratory illnesses, hantavirus \u201cinfects cells very deep in the lungs, so it\u2019s not as easily transmitted then when someone is speaking or coughing,\u201d Iovine said. <\/p>\n