The outbreak of hantavirus poses no immediate public health threat to India, chief of the National Institute of Virology told PTI on Friday.
The comments came amid concerns about two Indians reportedly having been infected by the hantavirus on board a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Both were asymptomatic and are under observation, The Indian Express quoted unidentified Union health ministry officials as saying.
The cases appear to be isolated ones and there was no evidence of community spread of the infections so far, PTI quoted Dr Naveen Kumar, the director of Indian Council of Medical Research's virology research institute, as saying.
Unlike the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, hantavirus does not spread easily among humans, Kumar told the news agency.
“Human-to-human transmission is extremely uncommon,” he told PTI. “...Limited person-to-person transmission has only been documented with some South American strains such as Andes virus.”
Kumar was quoted as saying that India has the laboratory surveillance capacity to identify suspected cases of hantavirus. He urged people working in rodent-prone environments such as ships, warehouses, storage facilities and poorly ventilated spaces to maintain hygiene.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization said that more cases of hantavirus infections could emerge after the disease killed three passengers of the cruise ship MV Hondius. However, the global health authority said that it would be “a limited outbreak” if public health measures are implemented by countries.
The deaths on board the cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean have sparked global health concerns.
Abdirahman Sheikh Mahamud, who heads the World Health Organization’s emergency alert and response operations, said on Thursday that the organisation was focussing on “a cluster in a confined space with close contact”.
“We don’t anticipate a large epidemic with the experience our member states have and the actions they have taken,” The Guardian quoted him as saying. “We believe that this will not lead to a subsequent chain of transmission.”
What is hantavirus?
Hantavirus is a zoonotic disease, meaning it is communicable from animals to humans. It is carried by rodents that can cause a range of severe illnesses among humans, and possibly death. People usually get infected by Hantavirus through contact with infected rodents or their droppings or saliva.
There are no vaccines and no specific treatment that cures hantavirus diseases, according to the World Health Organization. But early supportive medical care, such as close clinical monitoring and management of respiratory, cardiac and kidney complications, can help improve the chances of survival, according to the global health body.
Prevention depends largely on reducing contact with infected persons and rodents. Andes hantavirus found in South America is a known virus for which limited human‑to‑human transmission among close contacts has been documented, according to the World Health Organization.
In humans, the symptoms usually begin between one week to eight weeks of exposure to the virus. The symptoms typically include fever, headache, muscle aches and gastrointestinal problems such as abdominal pain, nausea or vomiting.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar
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