Hantavirus Brit found in Italian bar detained and taken to quarantine

A British tourist has been detained by authorities and quarantined after being caught in a Milan bar.

The Brit, in his 60s, had been on the same flight as hantavirus-stricken cruise ship passenger Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, when they travelled from Saint Helena to Johannesburg.

She was the wife of patient zero Leo Schilperoord, 70, who boarded the MV Hondius and made the trip to the rubbish tip on a remote Argentinan island.

She was taken off her next flight when she fell ill and died in a South African hospital.

The unnamed British holidaymaker and his travelling companion, who was not on the flight, were apprehended in Milan before being taken to Sacco Hospital.

The pair, who were not showing symptoms, were told they must remain in quarantine until June 6, after being forced into a 42-day isolation period.

It came after a French hantavirus patient was fighting for her life in hospital after being placed on an artificial lung.

Doctors described the device keeping her alive as ‘the final stage of supportive care.’

They added the passenger is suffering a severe form of the virus, ‘triggering life-threatening lung and heart failure’.

There are now 11 reported cases tied to the outbreak, nine of which have been confirmed. Three people who were aboard the cruise ship sailing the Atlantic Ocean have died of the rare but fatal disease.

One of the world’s leading health experts has warned that we can expect more hantavirus cases in the near future.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, maintains there are ‘no signs’ a pandemic is on the cards after cases of the rodent-borne disease were identified on the MV Hondius cruise ship last month.

But he told a press conference in Madrid: ‘Of course, the situation could change.

‘And given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.’

What is hantavirus?

Hantavirus, sometimes called the ‘rat virus’, is a rare family of pathogens carried by rodents – there is no vaccine or cure.

The virus spreads through contact with the faeces, urine and saliva of infected rodents.

Early symptoms can be easily mistaken for the flu, such as fever, chills or body aches, but can escalate to heart or lung failure.

At the centre of the cruise outbreak is the Andes strain, which is endemic to South America, including Argentina, where the ship departed on April 1.

Dr Stathis Giotis, a lecturer in life sciences at the University of Essex, told Metro that the Andes hantavirus is the only known strain that can be spread from human to human, though cases of this are few and far between.

‘It is clearly a serious situation for those directly affected and it deserves careful public health follow-up, but there is no evidence at present that this represents a broader epidemic threat,’ he said.

People who may get in contact with rat droppings, like agricultural workers or people simply cleaning their sheds, are at high risk.

Hantavirus is still a mystery

Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered about the hantavirus, including exactly how it spreads, how long it can survive outside a host and why it can be mild for some people and severe for others.

There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival. The Andes virus implicated in the cruise ship outbreak can have an incubation period of up to eight weeks and a mortality rate of up to 50%, according to the World Health Organization.

The virus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people, though the Andes virus may be able to spread between people in rare cases.

The genome of the hantavirus has been completely sequenced, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said Wednesday.

‘There is no data to suggest that this virus is behaving differently in terms of transmissibility or severity from any of the known virus circulating in certain regions of the world,’ said Andreas Hoefer, who oversees the operational coordination of the European Union’s reference laboratories for public health.

‘Based on that data, I would say that currently we have no reason to suspect that this is a new virus’.