Is there anything to fear from Hantavirus?
UC infectious diseases expert appears on local news radio
The University of Cincinnati's Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine at the College of Medicine, recently appeared on Scott Sloan's show on 700 WLW to share facts surrounding Hantavirus.
It's a different virus than Covid, said Fichtenbaum. "It is a very dangerous virus, but the one thing we know is it doesn't pass between humans, and it's not like measles, or flu or Covid, which rapidly passes between human beings. This one usually happens much more with exposure to rodents."
Unlike viruses that are more easily transmitted, Hantavirus requires much closer contact for transmission, Fichtenbaum said, such as living in tight quarters on a cruise ship.
Many of the Americans who recently left the cruise ship at the center of the latest Hantavirus outbreak are now being monitored by infectious disease experts.
"The incubation period of this virus can go up to six weeks, so individuals are going to be watched for that period of time," said Fichtenbaum. Initially, it can look like any other infection, he said, but then symptoms can become more severe than typical flu cases.
"It's a pretty dangerous virus," said Fichtenbaum, "And the main reason is we don't have an effective therapy for it. We don't have an effective prevention for it. There's no real effective vaccine you can take that lowers the chance of you getting it."
However, Fichtenbaum said most of the American public doesn't need to worry that this Hantavirus outbreak will become the next pandemic.
"We don't need to hit the panic button right now," he said.
Featured image at top: Hantavirus cells. Photo/iStock/Enes Evren.
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