Q&A: Epidemiologist from Brown University’s Pandemic Center on the hantavirus outbreak

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - A hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the South Atlantic has killed at least three and sickened multiple other people, prompting health officials to monitor disembarked passengers across multiple countries.

The Dutch-flagged vessel MV Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 carrying nearly 150 passengers and crew from 23 countries, including 18 Americans. The outbreak has been confirmed as hantavirus, a pathogen carried by some rodents that can infect humans in rare, but often deadly, instances.

Experts at the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health are monitoring developments through the center's Outbreak Observatory data tracker and weekly Tracking Report newsletter.

In this Q&A, Pandemic Center Director Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology whose work focuses on public health preparedness and response, explains what the public should know about the outbreak.

Q: What makes this strain of hantavirus different than others?

The Andes virus [ANDV] strain is a species of hantavirus that mostly circulates in Latin America - Argentina and Chile in particular. It is different from the hantavirus strain that, for instance, occurs in the southwest of the United States, in that we have seen limited person-to-person transmission, usually among people with close, prolonged contact. The Andes strain also tends to be a little more severe.

Q: What do people misunderstand about this outbreak?

I think people are very understandably concerned that this could be the start of another COVID-like pandemic. I think that is unlikely to be the case. I'm not worried about a pandemic happening here.

What I am worried about is that the usual health response that we see out of the U.S. government isn't happening and that this may be the virus telling us that it has gained some increased ability to infect and spread on a more limited basis. We don't have great medical tools to treat people who are infected. We don't have medical tools to prevent infection. Those are the kinds of research projects that we should be doing to try to stay ahead of not just this virus, but other deadly viruses. It doesn't have to be a pandemic to be a problem.

In this case, the fact that we have this virus that's acting in a way that's a bit confusing or a bit concerning - and we don't yet have all the answers - is the reason why we do research and why we respond swiftly to try to stay ahead of it.

Q: How do health experts think the virus spread on the MV Hondius?

It seems like the first case may have been someone who was traveling in Argentina before getting on the boat, and then a person they were traveling with subsequently became ill and died.

The thinking is that the other infections on the boat happened person-to-person. These people are together in a small space and have probably had a lot of opportunity to interact with each other and touch common surfaces, so that's the working hypothesis for how it likely spread - but I don't think we know for sure at this point.

At the same time, I don't think we expect to see much more onward transmission outside of people who've already been exposed on the ship, if the returned travelers go into quarantine or isolation.