ATLANTA — Two Georgia residents are being monitored after possible exposure to hantavirus aboard a luxury cruise ship in the North Atlantic.
The Georgia Department of Public Health says the pair recently returned home after leaving the cruise ship and are currently in good health with no signs of infection. Officials say the Georgians are following the latest recommendations provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC says the federal government is closely monitoring the situation involving U.S. travelers aboard the cruise ship, where three passengers died following a hantavirus outbreak. Five total cases have been confirmed through laboratory testing, although officials say additional passengers may be sick.
Health officials say the risk to the American public remains extremely low.
Dr. Celine Gounder said hantavirus does not spread easily between people.
“This is not Covid. The Andes Virus which is a kind of Hantavirus, requires close prolonged contact between two people in order to have transmission. When we’ve seen this happen in the past it’s been in the context of spouses,” Gounder said.
Harvard Medical School epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein said the strain involved in the outbreak has shown some limited human-to-human transmission.
“It doesn’t spread easily, and it requires close prolonged contact; so household members, cabin mates, caregivers. So the bottom line is a rare virus, a rare transmission, but potentially severe disease,” Brownstein said.
Brownstein also said passengers from the ship may need to be monitored for weeks because the virus can take time to appear.
“The tricky thing here is that the incubation period can be very long; 1 to 8 weeks according to the literature on Hantavirus, so monitoring can’t just end after a few days,” Brownstein said.
Gounder said the two Georgians likely did not expose others while traveling home from the cruise.
“Could they in theory come home safely, yes. The risk of spreading this on a flight is very low, they would need to be near a hospital that has a heart-lung bypass machine because that’s what you need when you get really sick with Hantavirus,” Gounder said.
WSB Radio’s Michelle Wright contributed to this story.