Hantavirus

Bluedaisy

Yes I’m a bit concerned as it’s my 70th birthday next week and my son & daughter in law have booked me a suprise weeks holiday on a cruise ship. Normally I would always book a balcony cabin but they have booked me an inside cabin. Not looking forward to being enclosed as I get claustrophobic so I’ve asked daughter in law (who’s coming with me) to bid on a balcony because I’m afraid if any germs get on board I’d hate to have to quarantine in an inside cabin!
I don’t think it’s gone down too well but tough. Also I will be sticking to eating in the dining room not buffet as the thought of all those people touching the utensils yuk!

Take plenty of hand gel 👍🏻

MT62

You could say that about all inclusive holidays.
I think we are the only two here using hand sanitizer before our meals.
you imagine where all those hands have been before picking up the tongs 🤦‍♀️

Not sure you can compare all-inclusive holidays with being holed up on a cruise ship!

No, because it doesn’t spread very easily at all. It’s completely different to Covid.

Nicolenet

I follow the news with interest. Hope this virus disappear quickly.

Viruses don’t jut go away
This virus was classified in 1987.

I would never go on a Cruise Ship holiday for health reasons. Too many people crammed into a shared space for lengthy periods.

Doesn't matter if the passengers picked up this Hanti virus on a day excursion. Or whatever.They still brought it back to the ship.

Where it could easily spread to other passengers.

As for getting off the ship at the Cape Verde Islands. That is not a great choice IM0.

Re the class action brought by hundreds of British TUI customers who suffered serious food poisoning and several died as a result of staying at several hotels.

Due to poor hygiene and
very basic medical care at local hospitals on the Cape Verde Islands.

Hope these Cruise ship people will be alright.

🫰

I was just reading about people being advise to self isolate for 45 days!

glammagran

I don’t believe this was picked up from the cruise ship at all. I read though, that a bird watching outing was undertaken to a landfill site. Apparently hantavirus is fairly rife in South Argentina.

Just watched the Spanish News regarding Hantavirus and yes, it is fairly rife in Southern Argentina.

Hantavirus: The key issue is "Quarentin" to control the spreading of this virus. The risk is, it spreads rapidly.

A virologist on the BBC said it's not easy to catch hantavirus. You have to spend time with someone who is infected like sharing a cabin.
You won't catch it by being with someone for a short time like COVID. Isolating those off the ship is more a precaution as if they haven't spent much time with those infected they are unlikely to have the virus

Depends on size of ship. That was only a small ship. PBW.
My main point is I don’t see much evidence of hand hygiene around our buffet. It’s one of the biggest factors for spreading viruses that cause sickness & diarrhoea.
Cunard ships spray every one’s hands on the way in to the dining room.
Loos, they open the doors using a fresh paper towel for each guest for the first few days.
It’s something I have always done using paper tissues.
I know this is a totally different virus, which I think has been carried on to that ship.

Cruise ships would seem to be floating virus factories. A sister and BiL (he is not in good health and hasn’t been for ages) recently went on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords- sister was officially confined to cabin for at least 3 days with a tummy bug she’d picked up on board.

Still, at least she had no chores or cooking to do, which TBH was the main point of the trip.

No I don't feel worried about this. From various news stations I gather it isn't easily spread from human to human. The main spread is through contact with rats, mice and their urine.

No.
beginning to wonder if I should be or not.

I had been wondering why there was no thread about it.
Eventually realised that there had been - called the ship name or something.

I am only a little concerned, partly because someone I consider a reasonable and reliable person in rl, is "smelling a rat"!
She is normally level headed. She thinks something doesnt add up with it all.
So that sparked my interest.

I keep hearing that it's only very close contact that can cause a spread but read this morning of 2 people on different flights with someone off the ship have now also contracted the illness so maybe not so 'close' after all. Glad I'm not going to Tenerife.

Do people actually go bird watching on a landfill site ?

fancythat

No.
beginning to wonder if I should be or not.

I had been wondering why there was no thread about it.
Eventually realised that there had been - called the ship name or something.

I am only a little concerned, partly because someone I consider a reasonable and reliable person in rl, is "smelling a rat"!
She is normally level headed. She thinks something doesnt add up with it all.
So that sparked my interest.

She sounds like a conspiracy theorist.

But if she can smell a rat tell her to be careful. It may be nearer to her than she thinks and could be carrying this virus.

!

She hasnt been up to now.

I thought Hantavirus was caught via the droppings and urine of rodents?

How would that manifest itself on a cruise ship? I did read on the media somewhere that a group of the tourists had been on some sort of wild bird excursion? Could they have caught it there?

Sky news has reported that UK passengers will be flown to the UK and transported to a North West quarantine site - Arrowe Park Hospital, Wirral, Merseyside.

Apparently it the Andes variant that passes from human to human.

Apparently they are being dropped off on the Wirral,at a hospital.Why can’t they go back to Argentina ?

I'm glad they can come home, they've been through a terrible time and it is a known virus & the authorities are being very careful with quarantine & other precautions.
Covid escalated very fast at the beginning & there doesn't appear to be a comparable escalation since the start of this outbreak so I'm not worried.

Kandinsky

Not worried no ( not yet anyway ) but it’s made my mind up about going on a cruise.

Us too. We were looking at northern lights cruises. My husband is immunocompromised. I think this probably puts paid to it. What is it about cruise ships?
Floating Petrie dishes, I guess 🤷‍♀️

Not inthe slightest. I won't come into contact with wild rats that carry it, or it's highly unlikely. I'm not on that ship or in close prolonged contact with anyone that has been.
Anyone that has is either still on the ship, dead, in hospital being quarantined or in isolation somewhere else. Even if it has been spread and not yet detected it still couldn't cause a pandemic, the media is doing what it always does... Scaremongering.

To put it into context, ebola is still killing people in Africa, the plague is still infecting people in parts of the world, leprosy still exists. Nobody is worried about any of those becoming a pandemic, and ebola is far more contagious than hantavirus.

Not really concerned but if anything it has made me even more certain that I would never go on a cruise.