Why the Hantavirus Cruise Ship Outbreak Isn’t Likely to Become a Global Crisis
Why the Hantavirus Cruise Ship Outbreak Isn’t Likely to Become a Global Crisis
为什么游轮上的汉坦病毒爆发不太可能演变成全球危机
Cruises are so closely associated with illness that the highly contagious norovirus is commonly called the “cruise ship virus.” But a ship headed for Spain’s Canary Islands has attracted global attention due to a rare outbreak of hantavirus that’s left three dead. While alarming, health officials and infectious disease experts say the risk to the general public right now is low because hantavirus is less contagious than other respiratory diseases like the coronavirus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.
游轮与疾病的关联度极高，以至于高传染性的诺如病毒常被称为“游轮病毒”。然而，一艘前往西班牙加那利群岛的船只因罕见的汉坦病毒爆发导致三人死亡，引发了全球关注。尽管情况令人担忧，但卫生官员和传染病专家表示，目前对公众的风险较低，因为汉坦病毒的传染性远低于导致新冠疫情的冠状病毒等其他呼吸道疾病。
“This is not Covid, this is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently,” Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the World Health Organization, said at a press conference on Thursday.
“这不是新冠，也不是流感。它的传播方式非常、非常不同，”世界卫生组织流行病和大流行防范与预防主任玛丽亚·范·克尔霍夫（Maria Van Kerkhove）在周四的新闻发布会上表示。
During the briefing, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed eight hantavirus cases among passengers of the MV Hondius luxury cruise ship, including the three who died. Typically transmitted by rodents, hantavirus can cause severe disease in humans. People usually get sick by inhaling air that’s contaminated with droppings, urine, or saliva from infected rodents. But the particular strain identified in the cruise ship cases, called the Andes virus, can spread between people.
在简报会上，世卫组织总干事谭德塞（Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus）证实，MV Hondius号豪华游轮的乘客中出现了8例汉坦病毒感染病例，其中包括3名死者。汉坦病毒通常由啮齿动物传播，可导致人类患上严重疾病。人们通常因吸入被受感染啮齿动物的粪便、尿液或唾液污染的空气而致病。但此次游轮病例中发现的特定毒株——安第斯病毒（Andes virus），可以在人与人之间传播。
Health officials in several countries are working to trace the contacts of 29 people who disembarked the ship on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena on April 24, about two weeks after the first hantavirus death occurred. A Swiss man who left the ship early has tested positive for the virus and is being treated, and two people in the UK are reportedly self-isolating after returning home. Six people from the US were among those who got off the ship.
多个国家的卫生官员正在追踪4月24日在南大西洋偏远的圣赫勒拿岛下船的29名乘客的接触者，此时距离首例汉坦病毒死亡病例发生已过去约两周。一名提前下船的瑞士男子病毒检测呈阳性并正在接受治疗，据报道，两名英国人在回国后正在进行自我隔离。下船人员中还包括6名美国人。
“The Administration is closely monitoring the situation with U.S. travelers onboard the M/V Hondius cruise ship with confirmed hantavirus,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Wednesday.
美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）在周三的一份声明中表示：“政府正在密切关注M/V Hondius号游轮上确诊感染汉坦病毒的美国旅客的情况。”
Yet experts say there’s no need to panic at this point. “It doesn’t spread terribly well, so I don’t have any concerns of this being the next Covid,” says Steven Bradfute, an immunologist and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico. “Most of the spread in the past with this virus has been with close contacts—people sharing a bed, people sharing food, that sort of thing.”
然而专家表示，目前无需恐慌。“它的传播能力并不强，所以我并不担心它会成为下一个新冠，”新墨西哥大学免疫学家兼全球健康中心副主任史蒂文·布拉德福特（Steven Bradfute）说。“过去这种病毒的大多数传播都是通过密切接触发生的——比如同床共枕、共用餐具等。”
The virus doesn’t spread easily with casual contact, and asymptomatic spread—a major driver of Covid cases during the pandemic—is also less likely. The available data on the Andes virus suggests it’s most likely to be transmitted when somebody is visibly sick, Bradfute says. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, fatigue, and dizziness, which can progress to coughing, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing.
该病毒不易通过日常接触传播，且无症状传播（新冠疫情期间病例激增的主要驱动因素）的可能性也较低。布拉德福特表示，现有的安第斯病毒数据表明，它最有可能在患者出现明显症状时传播。症状包括发烧、肌肉酸痛、疲劳和头晕，随后可能发展为咳嗽、气促和呼吸困难。
“That is actually really helpful, because it makes it a lot easier to do contact tracing and to identify high-risk individuals,” he says, though he cautions that outbreaks of Andes virus are uncommon, and just because the virus has behaved one way in the past does not mean it always will. “The infections have been rare enough that we can’t say that with certainty.”
“这实际上非常有帮助，因为它使接触者追踪和识别高危人群变得容易得多，”他说。但他同时提醒，安第斯病毒的爆发并不常见，且病毒过去的行为模式并不代表未来也会如此。“这种感染非常罕见，我们无法给出绝对的定论。”
One of those outbreaks occurred from late 2018 into early 2019 in Patagonian Argentina, stemming from a birthday party attended by around 100 people. Three people were the main drivers of the outbreak, which resulted in 34 cases and 11 deaths. The authors of a study who traced the outbreak in detail found that 26 of the 34 cases became sick after close contact with someone who was infected, including people who hadn’t attended the party. Six people were likely exposed to the virus via droplets or aerosols.
其中一次爆发发生在2018年底至2019年初的阿根廷巴塔哥尼亚地区，源于一场约100人参加的生日派对。三人是此次爆发的主要传播者，最终导致34人感染，11人死亡。一项详细追踪该疫情的研究发现，34名患者中有26人在与感染者密切接触后患病，其中包括未参加派对的人。另有6人可能是通过飞沫或气溶胶接触到病毒。
Hantaviruses are found all over the world, with “Old World” strains in Africa, Asia, and Europe causing kidney disease and “New World” strains in the Americas causing respiratory disease. The Andes strain is endemic to Argentina, where the ship departed from. In the US, most hantavirus cases occur in the Southwestern states when people come into contact with rodent droppings. Its high fatality rate of around 35 percent is what makes the new outbreak concerning.
汉坦病毒遍布全球，“旧大陆”毒株在非洲、亚洲和欧洲引起肾脏疾病，而“新大陆”毒株在美洲引起呼吸道疾病。安第斯毒株是该游轮出发地阿根廷的特有毒株。在美国，大多数汉坦病毒病例发生在西南部各州，通常是由于人们接触了啮齿动物的粪便。其约35%的高致死率正是此次疫情令人担忧的原因。
“The lungs fill with fluid because the blood vessels start leaking, and once the lungs start filling with fluid, you can’t breathe because there’s not efficient exchange of the air,” says Scott Weaver, a hantavirus researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch and the Global Virus Network, an international coalition of virologists. “Without proper treatment, and even with good treatment, patients can die.”
“肺部会因为血管渗漏而充满液体，一旦肺部开始积液，由于无法进行有效的气体交换，患者就会无法呼吸，”德克萨斯大学医学分部及国际病毒学家联盟“全球病毒网络”的汉坦病毒研究员斯科特·韦弗（Scott Weaver）说。“如果没有适当的治疗，即使在良好的治疗条件下，患者也可能死亡。”
Despite a Swiss man returning home and testing positive for the virus, public health officials there say the risk to the public is low, noting that the disease is known to spread through close contact. The patient’s wife, who traveled with him, has not yet shown any symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution. “There is currently no danger to the Swiss public,” the country’s Federal Office of Public Health said in a May 6 statement.
尽管一名瑞士男子回国后病毒检测呈阳性，但当地公共卫生官员表示，对公众的风险很低，并指出该疾病已知是通过密切接触传播的。与他同行的妻子目前尚未出现任何症状，但作为预防措施正在进行自我隔离。瑞士联邦公共卫生局在5月6日的声明中表示：“目前对瑞士公众没有危险。”
Health officials are still investigating how the outbreak on the cruise ship began. Investigators with the Argentine government told the Associated Press that the Dutch couple may have been infected during a bird-watching outing in the city of Ushuaia before boarding. Argentina’s health ministry said in a statement that it will trap and test rodents for the Andes variant in the city.
卫生官员仍在调查游轮上的疫情是如何开始的。阿根廷政府的调查人员告诉美联社，这对荷兰夫妇可能是在登船前于乌斯怀亚市进行观鸟活动时感染的。阿根廷卫生部在一份声明中表示，将在该市捕获并检测啮齿动物，以排查安第斯变异株。
“I don’t think anybody should be worried about getting on a typical cruise ship and being infected with the hantavirus,” Weaver says. “This was a unique circumstance where the ship docked in a part of the world where these viruses are present, and most of the big cruise ships don’t go to this part of the world.”
“我认为任何人都不必担心乘坐普通游轮会感染汉坦病毒，”韦弗说。“这是一种特殊情况，因为这艘船停靠在了这些病毒存在的地区，而大多数大型游轮并不会前往该地区。”