The outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship has raised global concern, especially with multiple suspected deaths and cases under investigation. But amid the panic, experts say it’s important to understand what hantavirus really is and what it is not. To cut through the noise, we sat down with two leading voices in infectious disease: Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, Senior Consultant Gastroenterologist and former President of the Indian Medical Association, Cochin, and Mumbai-based infectious disease expert Dr. Ishwar Gilada. They break down the gravity of this strain, the speed of its spread, and whether the "Antarctic virus" is a contained tragedy or a looming pandemic.
“Hantavirus is a well-known virus; it’s not a stranger to the medical community,” says Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, who was also Co-Chairman of the National IMA COVID Task Force.
Dr. Ishwar Gilada, infectious disease specialist, agrees, "This is quite an old virus causing zoonotic infections—that is, infections that come from animals and then become human infections. That is a dangerous state, and which we are fearing is possible in this current kind of outbreak, in that form. The virus is also called Hantaan virus (HTNV), belonging to the hantavirus family. There are several subspecies of that. One of them is called Andes virus, which is the virus present on the ship as per the working assumption from WHO."
“It is an RNA virus and an enveloped virus,” explains Dr. Jayadevan. “That means it has a lipid coating, almost like a soap bubble. And because of that, it is actually fragile and can be destroyed easily by soap.”
He explains further, "It's got a coat, it's called an enveloped virus. It's important to know that it's an enveloped virus. Viruses can either be enveloped or non-enveloped. For example, norovirus is one of those viruses that, if one kid gets ill in school, the entire school gets infected. It's extremely hardy and hard to kill because it's a naked virus. So viruses that don't have an envelope are hardy, and conventional cleaning methods cannot get rid of them. That is why whole facilities are shut whenever there's an outbreak.
In contrast, enveloped viruses have a coating called a lipid coating. The envelope is made of lipid, making it a fragile virus in medical terms, and so it's easily destroyed by soap. For example, if you wash your hands with soap and water, it is easily destroyed. COVID was an enveloped virus, that's why we promoted handwashing quite a bit on TV and everywhere else.
Hantavirus is also one of those viruses, and there are many species within the hantavirus family. Not all viruses are the same. For example, the one that is prevalent in the Western half of the world behaves differently from the one that is seen in the Asian part of the world. So there's some heterogeneity, which basically means differences in the types of viruses within the hantavirus family."
Hantavirus is a zoonotic infection, meaning it originates in animals. “It naturally lives in rodents like rats,” says Dr. Jayadevan. “They don’t usually fall sick from it. But when it accidentally jumps to humans, that’s when the problem happens.”
Dr. Gilada explains, "It is transmitted through rodents, rodents mean mice or rats, or other squirrel-like animals, but mainly rodents. So it is from rodents, through their urine and saliva, and they can infect other rodents. What can happen is that within the ship, either it came through some cargo or food material, or rodents got onto the ship and then multiplied. We don’t know what has happened. But when it was transmitted from the surroundings to humans, that became a concern."
This is where the current outbreak raises questions. “Most hantaviruses do not transmit from human to human,” says Dr. Gilada. “But some types, like the Andes virus, have that capacity. That is where the concern lies.”
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
