Hantavirus Case in Switzerland Spurs Race to Trace Contacts

Source: Wall Street Journal

Swiss officials are rushing to trace the contacts of a man who has been hospitalized in Zurich with a strain of the hantavirus that is capable of human-to-human transmission.

The patient became ill in Switzerland after returning from a trip to South America with his wife at the end of April, Switzerland’s Health Ministry said Wednesday. The man had traveled on the cruise ship where several cases of hantavirus, a disease typically carried by rodents, have killed at least three people, the ministry added.

The new case—in which a patient fell ill after his return to the mainland—raises the specter of human-to-human transmission outside the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship, which is currently anchored near Cape Verde.

Swiss officials said they are investigating whether the Zurich patient came into contact with other people during his infectious period. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says symptoms of a hantavirus infection usually take one to two weeks to emerge, but in some cases can take as long as eight weeks.

Viruses in the hantavirus family usually spread to humans through contact with infected rodent urine, droppings or saliva. But one strain of the virus found primarily in Chile and Argentina, known as the Andes virus, has shown limited evidence of human-to-human transmission. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it is possible that there was human-to-human transmission aboard the MV Hondius.

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