What’s This Hantavirus? Should Indians Be Worried?

The world is yet to fully recover from the Covid pandemic, which changed so many things financially and emotionally to the global population. And now we already have something problematic unfolding at the global health emergency level.

There is this new Hantavirus that is creating panic globally. This story got blown out of proportion after a recent establishment where a private cruise detected multiple cases of Hantavirus.

According to the latest reports, a rare outbreak of Hantavirus linked to a Dutch cruise ship has triggered global concern after the World Health Organization confirmed that the infections involve the Andes strain, the only known hantavirus capable of spreading from human to human.

At least two Indian nationals are part of the crew of the Dutch vessel MV Hondius which reported a hantavirus outbreak with five confirmed cases and three deaths so far, according to the BBC.

The luxury cruise ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, began its journey on April 1 from Argentina’s Ushuaia and is expected to arrive in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10.

This immediately resulted in panic and extreme volatility as people got anxious about the possible human transmission of this fatal virus that originates from rats and their remains.

But for now, the Indian population did not be too worried about this aspect as there’s no confirmed case of Hantavirus in the country yet.