(Credits: AP)
A British tourist has been detained by authorities and quarantined after being caught in a Milan bar.
The Brit, in his 60s, had been on the identical flight as hantavirus-stricken cruise ship passenger Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, once they travelled from Saint Helena to Johannesburg.
She was the wife of patient zero Leo Schilperoord, 70, who boarded the MV Hondius and made the trip to the rubbish tip on a distant Argentinan island.
She was taken off her next flight when she fell in poor health and died in a South African hospital.
The unnamed British holidaymaker and his travelling companion, who was not on the flight, were apprehended in Milan before being taken to Sacco Hospital.
The pair, who weren’t showing symptoms, were told they need to remain in quarantine until June 6, after being forced right into a 42-day isolation period.
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It got here after a French hantavirus patient was fighting for her life in hospital after being placed on a synthetic lung.
Doctors described the device keeping her alive as ‘the ultimate stage of supportive care.’
They added the passenger is suffering a severe type of the virus, ‘triggering life-threatening lung and heart failure’.
There at the moment are 11 reported cases tied to the outbreak, nine of which have been confirmed. Three individuals who were aboard the cruise ship sailing the Atlantic Ocean have died of the rare but fatal disease.
Considered one of the world’s leading health experts has warned that we are able to expect more hantavirus cases within the near future.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, maintains there are ‘no signs’ a pandemic is on the cards after cases of the rodent-borne disease were identified on the MV Hondius cruise ship last month.
But he told a press conference in Madrid: ‘In fact, the situation could change.
‘And given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we’d see more cases in the approaching weeks.’
What’s hantavirus?
Hantavirus, sometimes called the ‘rat virus’, is a rare family of pathogens carried by rodents – there isn’t a vaccine or cure.
The virus spreads through contact with the faeces, urine and saliva of infected rodents.
Early symptoms may be easily mistaken for the flu, resembling fever, chills or body aches, but can escalate to heart or lung failure.
On the centre of the cruise outbreak is the Andes strain, which is endemic to South America, including Argentina, where the ship departed on April 1.
Dr Stathis Giotis, a lecturer in life sciences on the University of Essex, told Metro that the Andes hantavirus is the one known strain that may be spread from human to human, though cases of this are few and much between.
‘It’s clearly a serious situation for those directly affected and it deserves careful public health follow-up, but there isn’t a evidence at present that this represents a broader epidemic threat,’ he said.
Individuals who may get involved with rat droppings, like agricultural staff or people simply cleansing their sheds, are at high risk.
Hantavirus continues to be a mystery
Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered in regards to the hantavirus, including exactly the way it spreads, how long it will possibly survive outside a bunch and why it will possibly be mild for some people and severe for others.
There isn’t any specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the prospect of survival. The Andes virus implicated within the cruise ship outbreak can have an incubation period of as much as eight weeks and a mortality rate of as much as 50%, in response to the World Health Organization.
The virus often spreads from rodent droppings and just isn’t easily transmitted between people, though the Andes virus may have the opportunity to spread between people in rare cases.
The genome of the hantavirus has been completely sequenced, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said Wednesday.
‘There isn’t any data to suggest that this virus is behaving in another way when it comes to transmissibility or severity from any of the known virus circulating in certain regions of the world,’ said Andreas Hoefer, who oversees the operational coordination of the European Union’s reference laboratories for public health.
‘Based on that data, I’d say that currently we have now no reason to suspect that it is a recent virus’.
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