90-Second Read: Rare Hantavirus outbreak has scientists on edge over fears of a person-to-person global outbreak

A deadly cruise ship outbreak was linked to Andes Hantavirus, a rodent-borne disease that can cause severe lung and kidney illness in humans. Hantavirus has stormed back into global headlines after a deadly outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius killed three passengers off the coast of West Africa. Today, scientists recognize dozens of Hantaviruses across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The Hantavirus family is named after Korea's Hantan River. New World strains in the Americas cause Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which floods the lungs and kills up to 40 percent of patients.

It is also the only Hantavirus known to spread from person to person. Hantaviruses do not readily jump from rodents to humans. Scientists studying polar warming warn that Hantavirus is showing up in places that historically avoided it. A recent analysis found that animal virus outbreaks are shifting steadily out of the tropics. Hantavirus, leptospirosis, and other rodent-linked illnesses are part of that drift.

Public health agencies across more than a dozen countries are now tracing exposed travelers, and the World Health Organization ( WHO ) has issued an international alert. Scientists named the new pathogen the Hantaan virus in 1980. Most infections begin when a person inhales dust contaminated by the urine, droppings, or saliva of an infected rodent. Unless you live in a Hantavirus hotspot or share an enclosed space with someone who is acutely ill, there is no cause for alarm. During the Korean War between 1951 and 1954, around 3,200 United Nations soldiers stationed near the river developed a mysterious hemorrhagic fever.

Anyone who develops fever, muscle pain, or breathing trouble within six weeks of visiting a known Hantavirus region should seek medical care immediately. Hantavirus began its scientific career in the trenches of the Korean War. Army doctors named the illness "Korean hemorrhagic fever." They could describe its symptoms in detail, but could not identify the cause. Outbreaks often spike after wet seasons, when rodent populations explode. The full outbreak update was published by the World Health Organization.