Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak

Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak And why health experts believe it can be contained. MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. Eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship have contracted a type of hantavirus, a rare virus transmitted by rats. Three of them have died. As the ship prepares to dock in the Canary Islands, plans are being finalized to let the remaining passengers and crew disembark safely. The virus in question appears to have a high fatality rate. Read on for answers to the big questions surrounding the outbreak—and to hear why health experts don’t expect a rerun of the covid-19 pandemic. What is hantavirus? Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that typically infect rodents but can be transmitted to humans through exposure to the animals or their droppings, urine, or saliva. The viruses don’t seem to cause illness in rodents, but they can make people very unwell. The symptoms can depend on the type of hantavirus a person has been exposed to. Varieties found in the Americas can cause hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome, which affects the lungs and heart and has a fatality rate of up to 50%. That condition made headlines last year when it caused the death of pianist Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman. How many cases have there been so far? On April 6, a man aboard the MV Hondius developed respiratory symptoms. He became very unwell and died just five days later. His wife, who left the ship at the island of Saint Helena, also developed symptoms. Her health deteriorated during a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, and she died the following day, on April 26. South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases tested samples taken from the woman and confirmed that she had hantavirus. A third person aboard the ship, who developed symptoms on April 28, died on May 2. Four other passengers who became ill were evacuated—one to South Africa and three to the Netherlands. An eighth person had disembarked in Saint Helena and reported similar symptoms once he was in Zurich, Switzerland. A team at Geneva University Hospitals confirmed that he had become ill from the Andes virus—a form of hantavirus that can be spread between people. Could this be the start of the next pandemic? Health experts don’t believe so. They stress that the situation is nothing like the one the coronavirus that causes covid-19 presented in 2020. For a start, the Andes virus is not a mysterious new virus—scientists already have an understanding of it, and Argentina is sharing diagnostic kits it has already developed. The virus also doesn’t spread in the same way. Officials at the World Health Organization emphasized that the spread of hantavirus requires close contact—the kind a person might have with a partner, household member, or medical caregiver. The cruise ship outbreak represents “a…