90-Second Read: Hantavirus cruise outbreak sounds a dire warning for a mobile world

The shipboard Hantavirus outbreak is an alarm bell: A mobile world makes infection prevention, in the travel industry and in hospitals, more vital than ever. While there's a lot of handwringing over the fact we don't have a vaccine or medication to control Andes Hantavirus, that's not the real issue: It's not economically feasible to develop targeted treatments for viruses so rarely seen. But on Monday, a Dutch hospital disclosed that it's quarantining 12 staffers who handled the blood and urine of a Hantavirus patient without taking precautions. Instead, several days later, the ship's command allowed 34 passengers and crew to leave the ship freely at the port of St.

US officials are watching to see if any passengers who disembarked from the ship early and entered the United States, as well as air travelers who were exposed to them, come down with the infection. The ongoing Hantavirus scare is a reminder that rigorously following infection-prevention principles is a must as more and more travelers invade ecosystems harboring thousands of untreatable viruses. Not until May 2, almost a month after shipboard exposure began, did the ship's authorities ask the World Health Organization for help, as people on board continued to fall ill. When 114 guests and 61 crew boarded the MV Hondius at Ushuaia, Argentina, on April Fool's Day, they had no idea they were setting sail on a literal Ship of Fools.

Among those who boarded that day was a 70-year-old birdwatcher who had spent his final days ashore trapsing through a rat-infested Argentinian dump looking for rare birds. A Spanish woman on the same flight developed symptoms and is being tested in her home province of Alicante. Vaccines now in progress could one day be customized for a rare virus, but once vaccination is being considered, the disease has already spread widely. That means isolating anyone showing symptoms of illness, identifying the pathogen if possible, and curbing the spread.

Any unexplained illness is a red flag, particularly when it strikes a traveler known to have been exposed to the wild. It's a lesson we should have learned in 2003, when two travelers from Asia arrived at two Canadian hospitals unknowingly carrying the SARS virus. Hospitals that routinely practice rigorous infection prevention likely stopped the virus in its tracks.