The hantavirus outbreak which began on the MV Hondius cruise ship has many worried that a pandemic similar to the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic is in the works - but global health authorities have thus far denied that human-to-human transmission can be through casual contact.
However, in a new guest essay published by The New York Times, Zeynep Tufekci warns that key information is not being passed to the public.
Tufekci examined a 2018 outbreak of the same strain - the Andes strain - of hantavirus, which began in Epuyén, Argentina. In that outbreak, an infected person attended a birthday party with around 100 guests, and left early due to malaise; he infected five people while at the party. One of those five infected six others, including their spouse, and died 16 days after falling ill. During his wake, his spouse infected another 10 people. At that point, public health authorities began to enforce quarantine, and the outbreak died out.
Here's the catch: Dr. Gustavo Palacios, the senior author of the study on the Epuyén outbreak. told The New York Times that although they wrote "close and prolonged contact" they also specified in the study that they did not mean solely physical or bodily contact. He stressed to Tufekci that he and his team believed that the Andes strain of hantavirus spread through respiratory secretions.
Dr. Palacios also told Tufekci that he and his co-authors believed median the Andes strain has a median reproduction number of 2.1; in other words each infected person infects two other people - a number not significantly lower than COVID-19's median reproduction rate. In addition, although only symptomatic individuals are considered contagious, Dr. Palacios believes that there is high risk of transmission up to 48 hours before symptoms begin - in other words, when a person is still asymptomatic.
And, he noted, management of an outbreak in an isolated village during the dry season is markedly easier than management of an outbreak on a cruise ship in the ocean's humidity and when potential vectors travel home by plane, especially since the virus' incubation period can last up to 40 days.
Tufekci also quoted a statement by airborne transmission expert Linsey Marr told CBC/Radio Canada. Marr, who read through Palacios' study, told the radio station that the study's findings are "strongly suggestive" of airborne transmission.
The World Health Organization (WHO) over the weekend published a new document clarifying that the types of contact in which the Andes strain infects human-to-human include "close proximity exposure" and "exposure in enclosed or shared spaces." At this point, management of those in contact with exposed individuals still largely relies on the contacts' goodwill and cooperation.