This is an excellent interview piece. Do go read it all.

The estimable CIDRAP is trying to help the leadership of our feckless federal response effort… learn a few things — about viral epidemic vectors. Here’s that, without any additional ado:

…Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News, said the media and even some public health officials are missing key elements of the hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship.

During a Q&A with CIDRAP News, he explained how and why superspreaders are key to understanding the Andes strain of hantavirus, why close proximity is only part of the consideration, and why he doesn’t think this outbreak is the next “big one.”

Per the World Health Organization, the outbreak that began on the MV Hondius cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Europe has resulted in 11 cases. Three patients have died since April 11.

Today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that no Americans have been sickened so far in this outbreak. The agency said it is monitoring 41 people for the virus, at least 18 of whom are being quarantined in biocontainment units….

Michael Osterholm: There have been over 100 cases of hantavirus in Argentina this past year and no reports of person-to-person transmission. It’s a rare phenomenon, but it happens. Transmission likely involves superspreaders, individuals — for reasons not clear — who transmit at high rates via the respiratory route to other humans.

We have a model for that with SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] and MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome], a handful of cases who really drove the activity in a given outbreak….

“From an HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air condition] standpoint, a cold-water cruise ship is all about keeping the ship warm. It’s not a cruise ship in the Caribbean, where people are drinking martinis on the deck; this ship poses different issues.

Many of these ships have lots of air that gets moved around inside the actual ship. This is why we can have cases who were not exposed in close proximity, or close physical contact. It’s all about who is swapping air, and we are not talking about that. Investigators need to think about who swapped air with whom….” [said Osterholm.]

Do go read it all. It is excellent — top to bottom. Onward, now — with my babygrrl flying back to Heathrow tomorrow night, and then… on to Morocco for a month, in a week’s time. Woot!

नमस्ते