The World Health Organization (WHO) has flagged a cluster of passengers aboard a cruise ship with hantavirus, a severe respiratory illness.
While the public risk remains low, health experts say awareness is crucial for Trinidad and Tobago, given travel links and rodent exposure risks.
Chief Medical Advisor for Medical Associates, Dr. Sanjiv Parasram, provided details about the virus.
“The hantavirus actually is a family of viruses. Hantavirus is just the name for the family. So it is actually multiple viruses we speak about when we talk about hantavirus. There are actually about, maybe, 37 described species of hantavirus in the world. It is globally distributed. It is pretty much on all continents. As you are speaking, there is really one of these 37 viruses that there may be a risk of human-to-human transmission.”
Transmission of the virus to humans is a concern, but Dr. Parasram noted that transmission of the virus between humans is not common.
“The most common way, you are exposed to rat droppings or rat urine, and somehow you inhale that because you’re sweeping up the droppings and you’re kicking up all that dust, and you inhale it. That is the most common way that people across the world get exposed to hantavirus.”