Hantavirus outbreak: India faces no immediate public health threat, says virology institute chief

The outbreak of hantavirus poses no immediate public health threat to India, chief of the National Institute of Virology told PTI on Friday.

The comments came amid concerns about two Indians reportedly having been infected by the hantavirus on board a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Both were asymptomatic and are under observation, The Indian Express quoted unidentified Union health ministry officials as saying.

The cases appear to be isolated ones and there was no evidence of community spread of the infections so far, PTI quoted Dr Naveen Kumar, the director of Indian Council of Medical Research's virology research institute as saying.

Unlike the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, hantavirus does not spread easily among humans, Kumar told the news agency.

“Human-to-human transmission is extremely uncommon,” he told PTI. “...Limited person-to-person transmission has only been documented with some South American strains such as Andes virus.”

Kumar was quoted as saying that India has the laboratory surveillance capacity to identify suspected cases of hantavirus. He urged people working in rodent-prone environments such as ships, warehouses, storage facilities and poorly ventilated spaces to maintain hygiene.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization said that more cases of hantavirus infections could emerge after the disease killed three passengers of the cruise ship MV Hondius. However, the global health authority said that it would be...

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