KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Even as the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (Carpha) in­ves­ti­gates re­ports claim­ing T&T has de­tect­ed cas­es of han­tavirus, the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day de­nied the claims and dis­missed a cir­cu­lat­ing memo about school clo­sures as fake.

The is­sue sur­faced dur­ing Carpha’s vir­tu­al me­dia brief­ing on han­tavirus and the Caribbean af­ter Bar­ba­dos-based me­dia out­let Na­tion News asked ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Lisa In­dar about re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing in T&T. In­dar said she, too, re­ceived the mes­sage dur­ing the brief­ing, but stressed there was no ev­i­dence to con­firm a han­tavirus case in this coun­try.

She said Carpha was in con­tact with the Min­istry of Health to ver­i­fy the claim, but not­ed the in­for­ma­tion did not orig­i­nate from the min­istry or any recog­nised health au­thor­i­ty.

“As far as we are aware, there is no ev­i­dence to con­firm some­thing like this,” In­dar said, adding that the like­li­hood of lo­cal cas­es was “very un­like­ly” based on cur­rent in­for­ma­tion.

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health warned the pub­lic against shar­ing a memo cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia, which claimed schools would be tem­porar­i­ly closed be­cause of han­tavirus con­cerns.

“The Min­istry con­firms that the memo in ques­tion was not is­sued by the Min­istry of Health, and there­fore mem­bers of the pub­lic are urged not to share or dis­sem­i­nate the in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion,” the min­istry stat­ed.

It ad­vised cit­i­zens to re­ly on­ly on of­fi­cial min­istry plat­forms for ver­i­fied up­dates.

In­dar warned that mis­in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing han­tavirus was al­ready spread­ing rapid­ly across the re­gion.

Carpha’s Di­rec­tor of Sur­veil­lance, Dis­ease Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol, Dr Ho­race Cox, al­so urged re­spon­si­ble re­port­ing amid what he de­scribed as an en­vi­ron­ment flood­ed with ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion, mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion.

He said re­gion­al health agen­cies re­ly heav­i­ly on the me­dia to en­sure the pub­lic re­ceives clear and ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion.

The brief­ing fo­cused large­ly on the han­tavirus out­break aboard the Dutch-flagged cruise ves­sel MV Hondius, which de­part­ed Ar­genti­na on April 1 on a South At­lantic voy­age.

In­dar said the risk to the Caribbean re­mained low and stressed that han­tavirus does not spread eas­i­ly be­tween peo­ple.

“The An­des strain linked to this out­break is un­usu­al in that lim­it­ed per­son-to-per­son trans­mis­sion has been ob­served. How­ev­er, this is rare, re­quir­ing close and pro­longed con­tact, and it has not been shown to spread wide­ly in com­mu­ni­ties.”

The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) first re­port­ed the out­break on May 2 af­ter sev­er­al pas­sen­gers de­vel­oped se­vere res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness aboard the ves­sel.

As of yes­ter­day, there were eight con­firmed and sus­pect­ed cas­es linked to the out­break, in­clud­ing three deaths.

Pas­sen­gers and crew from 28 coun­tries, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, the Philip­pines and the Nether­lands, were among those af­fect­ed, prompt­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­tact trac­ing and sur­veil­lance ef­forts.

In­dar said WHO and Dutch au­thor­i­ties placed the ves­sel un­der strict pub­lic health pro­to­cols, while ex­posed pas­sen­gers and crew con­tin­ued to un­der­go mon­i­tor­ing and med­ical as­sess­ment.

She ex­plained that han­tavirus was not a new dis­ease but a well-doc­u­ment­ed ro­dent-borne vi­ral dis­ease that has ex­ist­ed in dif­fer­ent parts of the world for decades.

The virus is spread main­ly through ex­po­sure to in­fect­ed ro­dents or their urine, drop­pings and sali­va.

In­dar said the out­break aboard the MV Hondius in­volved the An­des strain, the on­ly known han­tavirus strain ca­pa­ble of lim­it­ed hu­man-to-hu­man trans­mis­sion, found main­ly in parts of South Amer­i­ca, in­clud­ing Ar­genti­na.

“Based on the ev­i­dence avail­able, the ro­dent species that main­tains this virus in na­ture is not present in the Caribbean, and there­fore, there is no doc­u­ment­ed es­tab­lished lo­cal route of trans­mis­sion in our re­gion,” she said.

The in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od for han­tavirus ranges from one to six weeks, and there is cur­rent­ly no an­tivi­ral treat­ment or vac­cine. How­ev­er, Carpha said its re­gion­al sur­veil­lance and lab­o­ra­to­ry sys­tems were ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and re­mained pre­pared to re­spond if nec­es­sary.

In­dar stressed that han­tavirus dif­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly from COVID-19 and does not have the same pan­dem­ic po­ten­tial.

Carpha ad­vised the pub­lic to prac­tise prop­er hy­giene, wash hands fre­quent­ly and avoid con­tact with ro­dents and un­well in­di­vid­u­als.