CARPHA says Caribbean risk from hantavirus outbreak remains low

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) says the han­tavirus out­break linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship in­volves the An­des virus strain, which is ca­pa­ble of lim­it­ed hu­man-to-hu­man trans­mis­sion.

In a state­ment, CARPHA said the An­des virus is found main­ly in parts of South Amer­i­ca, in­clud­ing Ar­genti­na.

The agency stat­ed that the ro­dent species linked to the virus is not present in the Caribbean and there is no es­tab­lished lo­cal source of trans­mis­sion with­in the re­gion.

CARPHA said avail­able ev­i­dence shows that hu­man-to-hu­man trans­mis­sion is rare and usu­al­ly re­quires in­ti­mate or pro­longed ex­po­sure. The agency not­ed that the in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od be­fore symp­toms ap­pear can range from one to six weeks.

The agency al­so stat­ed that there is no an­tivi­ral treat­ment or vac­cine for the virus. CARPHA said med­ical care is sup­port­ive and may in­clude oxy­gen ther­a­py and in­ten­sive mon­i­tor­ing.

CARPHA ad­vised mem­ber states and the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant but not alarmed.

The agency said its sur­veil­lance and lab­o­ra­to­ry sys­tems are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and can de­tect and re­spond if nec­es­sary.

CARPHA stat­ed that it is work­ing with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ca­tion to mem­ber states and the pub­lic. The agency said the ef­fort is aimed at shar­ing in­for­ma­tion, re­duc­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion and sup­port­ing aware­ness re­lat­ing to the out­break.

The agency en­cour­aged the pub­lic to con­tin­ue prac­tis­ing hy­giene mea­sures, in­clud­ing fre­quent hand­wash­ing and avoid­ing close con­tact with peo­ple who are un­well.

CARPHA al­so ad­vised peo­ple to take pre­cau­tions in en­vi­ron­ments where ro­dents may be present, not­ing that these mea­sures can help re­duce the spread of han­tavirus and oth­er in­fec­tious dis­eases.

The agency said its as­sess­ment is aligned with in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion and the Unit­ed King­dom Health Se­cu­ri­ty Agency.

CARPHA said the over­all risk to the pub­lic and the Caribbean re­mains low.