How Does It Spread?

"A man goes to a birthday party, sits next to someone with hantavirus, catches it, gives it to his wife, and dies. His wife then infects 10 more people at his wake. Another guest at that same birthday party has no interaction with the index patient except to say "hello" as they cross paths, but that person gets sick too."

"One index patient, 33 subsequent infections, 11 deaths, four waves of transmission. This is from a meticulously documented hantavirus outbreak in Argentina in late 2018 and early 2019, published in the New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM). Nearly the exact same Andes strain of hantavirus caused the recent outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius."

"In any outbreak, the single most important question is: How does it spread? The answer informs the guidance for everything else, including how to stay safe, which protective measures to put in place, and who should be notified during contact tracing. Get it wrong and everything else breaks down."

"We're now getting it wrong again."This is not a respiratory disease," Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said about the hantavirus in an ABC News interview on Sunda"

A documented hantavirus outbreak in Argentina in late 2018 and early 2019 involved transmission from an initial infected man at a birthday party to his wife, who then infected additional people at his wake. The outbreak included 33 subsequent infections, 11 deaths, and four waves of transmission. Another guest who only exchanged a brief greeting with the index patient later became ill, indicating transmission may occur without prolonged interaction. The Andes strain implicated in Argentina closely matches the strain linked to a later outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius. Public-health claims about spread through prolonged close contact are presented as insufficiently supported by the observed transmission patterns.

Read at The Atlantic