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Should I be worried that the hantavirus, which spreads from animals to people like Covid did, could become a pandemic? Can viruses combine - meaning the transmissible nature of Covid joins with the lethal nature of the hantavirus?
Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that have been on a watch list (Priority Pathogens) by the NIH and WHO for many years. Yet, there is much that is not well-known about these viruses. There is a general understanding that some hantaviruses, such as the Andes strain, can be passed person-to-person. And, previously, we thought that it was very rare and required close contact among people. We also know that the incubation period (the period of time from exposure to the time of showing symptoms, is a relatively long time—it could be up to 42 days but the median time may be 18 days.Ìý So, that explains why the quarantine (monitoring period) is set for 42 days total, but we expect that half of truly exposed people will show symptoms by about 18 days.
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Up to now, we have not seen that these viruses re-combine with each other to rapidly evolve or become more transmissible. Currently, the situation is principally concerned with people who may have had contact with the cruise ship passengers/crew. I would not be concerned about your personal risk from hantavirus if you were not on this cruise ship in the past month.
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However, this circumstance highlights the importance of maintaining good domestic and international surveillance for a wide-spectrum of diseases.
