Health minister urges caution with hantavirus

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe says the Min­istry of Health is care­ful­ly mon­i­tor­ing un­usu­al res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go amid in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern over a clus­ter of han­tavirus cas­es linked to a cruise ship bound for the Ca­nary Is­lands.

In a Min­istry fact sheet is­sued this week, the min­istry said there were cur­rent­ly no con­firmed cas­es of han­tavirus in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but not­ed that sur­veil­lance re­mained ac­tive fol­low­ing re­ports from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

“The Min­istry of Health con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al sit­u­a­tion while main­tain­ing ac­tive sur­veil­lance for un­usu­al res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es amongst the pop­u­la­tion,” the ad­vi­so­ry stat­ed.

The warn­ing comes af­ter the WHO con­firmed eight cas­es of han­tavirus, in­clud­ing three deaths, linked to pas­sen­gers aboard an in­ter­na­tion­al cruise ship. Ac­cord­ing to the WHO, the cas­es in­volved the rare An­des strain of the virus, the on­ly known han­tavirus strain ca­pa­ble of lim­it­ed hu­man-to-hu­man trans­mis­sion through close and pro­longed con­tact with bod­i­ly flu­ids.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, con­sul­tant in in­ter­nal med­i­cine and CNC3 host Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh al­so urged the pub­lic to take ro­dent con­trol and san­i­ta­tion se­ri­ous­ly, warn­ing that im­prop­er clean­ing of ro­dent-in­fest­ed ar­eas could in­crease the risk of in­fec­tion.

“Han­tavirus is not usu­al­ly a cruise ship virus. It doesn’t spread like COVID. It doesn’t jump from per­son to per­son in crowd­ed din­ing halls,” Teelucks­ingh said.

“It comes from rat urine and drop­pings that be­come air­borne, es­pe­cial­ly in en­closed spaces.”

He ex­plained that ear­ly symp­toms can of­ten re­sem­ble oth­er vi­ral ill­ness­es, mak­ing di­ag­no­sis dif­fi­cult.

“We know about the non-spe­cif­ic symp­toms of many virus­es: fever, chills, mus­cle aches or fa­tigue. In fact, I think we may have mis­di­ag­nosed cas­es as lep­tospiro­sis,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh warned that some pa­tients can rapid­ly de­te­ri­o­rate af­ter ini­tial flu-like symp­toms.

“Sud­den­ly short­ness of breath, flu­id-filled lungs and ICU. This is han­tavirus pul­monary syn­drome (HPS), with mor­tal­i­ty ap­proach­ing one in three.”

He added that in se­vere cas­es, pa­tients may al­so de­vel­op liv­er and kid­ney fail­ure.

Teelucks­ingh en­cour­aged peo­ple to spray ro­dent drop­pings be­fore at­tempt­ing to clean them.

“This is pre­ventable. Seal en­try points. Clean safe­ly. Avoid sweep­ing dry drop­pings. Ven­ti­late en­closed spaces,” he said.

He added: “Pub­lic health is san­i­ta­tion. In­fra­struc­ture. Pest con­trol. The bor­ing things that qui­et­ly save lives.”

The min­istry al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to main­tain prop­er en­vi­ron­men­tal san­i­ta­tion and ro­dent con­trol mea­sures to re­duce the risk of ro­dent-borne dis­eases, in­clud­ing han­tavirus and lep­tospiro­sis.

Min­istry warn­ing

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry’s ad­vi­so­ry, the virus spreads pri­mar­i­ly through con­tact with in­fect­ed ro­dents, their urine, drop­pings or sali­va. In­fec­tion can oc­cur when con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed dust par­ti­cles be­come air­borne and are in­haled, par­tic­u­lar­ly while clean­ing ro­dent-in­fest­ed ar­eas.

The min­istry warned against dry sweep­ing or vac­u­um­ing ro­dent drop­pings, say­ing those ac­tions could re­lease virus par­ti­cles in­to the air. In­stead, of­fi­cials rec­om­mend­ed a “wet clean­ing” method in­volv­ing dis­in­fec­tant sprays or di­lut­ed bleach so­lu­tions be­fore wip­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sur­faces.