Featured Image Credit: Joao Luiz Bulcao/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Experts have made an alarming discovery about hantavirus following the recent outbreak on a cruise ship.
The ship MV Hondius was sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at remote islands along the way as it made its way from Argentina to Cape Verde when it was struck by the virus.
This resulted in three deaths and multiple confirmed cases over the following weeks.
After being refused permission to dock at Cape Verde, the ship was left stranded in open waters while it faced the health crisis until it was allowed to disembark passengers in the Canary Islands.
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Since then, public concern has been raised over whether this virus could spread into a full blown pandemic.
At a recent press conference, Admiral Brian Christine, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, attempted to alleviate these worries, stating that the risk to the public is ‘very, very low’, saying: “Let me be crystal clear: the risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low.
“The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic.”
Now though, scientists have discovered that the hantavirus can live in human semen ‘for up to six years’.
This is according to a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in MDPI which examined men who had been infected with the virus.
The team of researchers found that a man still had the Andes virus genetic material in his semen 71 months after initially becoming unwell.
That being said, these findings do not necessarily mean that the man is still infectious, although experts could not rule this out as a possibility.
Passengers from the MV Hondius have been taken to medical facilities for checks before being ordered to isolate at home.
Hantavirus can cause two life-threatening syndromes, according to the WHO: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
The early symptoms of HPS, which attacks the lungs, start one to eight weeks after infection, and include:
Later symptoms include:
Early symptoms of HFRS, which affects the kidneys, start one to two weeks after infection, and include:
Later symptoms include:
