Hantavirus
Three people are dead, seven others now ill in an outbreak of this rodent-carrying infection. Eight, including the three fatalities, were on board the Dutch luxury cruise ship MV Hondius. Two others, remote from the ship, were reported on Friday.
The mystery here is two-fold: 1) the vector 2) the infection of humans.
The Plague's was rodent-borne too, specifically fleas on rodents. The fleas "jumped ship", off the rats on ships and onto humans. The Plague was in the 14th century. Sanitation, rodent control, hygiene, and medicine have made some progress in seven centuries. Therefore it was surprising that rodents would be aboard a luxury liner like the Hondius. Indeed, this outbreak is "the first of its kind documented on a ship".
Too, Hantavirus has a harder jump to make to humans than the small, hopping fleas of the Plague. Hantavirus needs to make a Great Leap, either by a bite from a rodent or, gross alert, inhalation of aerosolized urine of the rodent. How do either of those happen to six people on a luxury cruise ship in the 21st century? You're thinking six different people did not kiss an infected rodent onboard the Hondius, that the outbreak started with rodent-to-human infection and then spread from human to human. I am too! But...
Human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. There was like one reported case before the Hondius. World Health Organization testing has determined that the hantavirus onboard the ship is the Andes variant, "the only hantavirus species known to be capable of limited transmission between humans, through close and prolonged contact, according to the WHO." Thus, "WHO officials have repeatedly said the risk to the public at large is not high and the virus is not transmitted easily."
Easier than WHO thinks! In the two cases reported Friday, one was a woman who became ill after sitting "near" (not "next to") one of the infected cruise passengers on a plane flight.
Viruses are a bitch, as we all know from our experience with COVID-19. Viruses mutate so frequently that human virus hunters are always a step behind. The behavior of this hantavirus, whether the Andes variant or a sub-variant of the Andes, or a completely different variant, is unique or extremely unusual.
One can only hope that this hantavirus does not spread to the U.S., or that if it does it infects only MAGAts because WHO "puts the fatality rates among infected people in the United States at up to 50%."
