New Delhi: The World Health Organization has clarified that the ongoing hantavirus outbreak is very different from Covid-19 and is unlikely to develop into a large scale global pandemic.
Speaking during a media briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, Director for Epidemic and Pandemic Management at the WHO, said the virus spreads in a completely different manner compared to coronavirus or influenza.
She explained that the current outbreak linked to a cruise ship involved the Andes strain of hantavirus, which is the only known strain capable of limited human to human transmission. However, she stressed that such transmission requires very close and prolonged contact between individuals.
WHO officials confirmed that there are currently no symptomatic passengers or crew members onboard the affected ship. They also noted that earlier outbreaks involving the Andes strain mainly spread among close personal contacts rather than through casual interaction.
Abdirahman Mahamud from the WHO Emergencies Health Programme compared the present situation to a previous outbreak in Argentina between 2018 and 2019, where infections spread within a confined social setting involving close contact.
He stated that public health measures such as contact tracing, monitoring, and isolation can effectively break the chain of transmission and prevent the outbreak from expanding further. According to WHO officials, the present cases remain limited to a confined environment and do not indicate widespread community transmission.
Experts also highlighted the key difference between hantavirus and Covid-19. Hantavirus is primarily a zoonotic disease that spreads from rodents to humans through exposure to infected urine, droppings, or saliva. Covid-19, on the other hand, spreads rapidly through airborne respiratory transmission between people.
While hantavirus infections can be more severe and carry a higher fatality rate in some cases, the virus does not spread efficiently between humans, making the risk of a global pandemic significantly lower.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organisation currently considers the public health risk to be low, although additional cases may still emerge due to the virus’s incubation period, which can extend up to six weeks.
