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Canada’s public health agency confirmed a positive case of hantavirus in a Canadian isolating in British Columbia after leaving the cruise ship affected by a deadly outbreak.
In a news release Sunday, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said laboratory testing conducted by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed one passenger, a Yukon resident, tested positive while their travelling partner’s was confirmed negative for the virus after samples were sent from B.C.
The case was first reported publicly by Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, on Saturday, when she said the test had come back with a “presumptive positive” result.
Henry said the passenger, part of a couple from the Yukon who were isolating on Vancouver Island, was hospitalized after developing mild symptoms, including fever and headache, earlier in the week.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) confirmed a positive case of hantavirus through laboratory testing in a Canadian isolating in B.C. after leaving the cruise ship affected by a deadly outbreak. PHAC said a second person who travelled with the confirmed case tested negative for hantavirus, while the overall risk to the general population in Canada remains low.
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“There have been no further cases identified at this time. All high-risk contacts are isolating and will continue to be monitored closely by local public health,” PHAC said.
The agency said the overall risk to the general population in Canada remains low from the Andes hantavirus outbreak linked to the ship.
“All confirmed cases to date have been passengers or crew on the MV Hondius cruise ship. Given the severity of this virus, we are taking a precautionary approach to ensure Canadians are protected,” the agency added.
Dr. Joss Reimer, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, thanked public health authorities and frontline staff in B.C. in the statement, “for the dedicated care that they are providing and for their ongoing management of the situation, and the passengers for their co-operation with public health direction to help keep others safe.”
Risk continues to be low: expert
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta, said the risk from the hantavirus outbreak on the ship continues to be low for the general public even after the confirmed case.
The Canadian who is sick was on the ship where the initial outbreak happened, she said, and tested positive during the incubation period.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says a Canadian isolating in B.C. has tested ‘presumptive positive’ for hantavirus after leaving the cruise ship affected by an outbreak of the Andes strain in recent weeks.
“What would worry me most, looking at any kind of an outbreak situation, is if we start to see a second or third generation of transmission away from the people who were exposed to the case that obviously had a high viral load on the ship,” she said.
“Or if there was any kind of unlinked transmission, so a new case popped up and you didn’t know where they’d gotten it.”
A total of four people were flown to Vancouver Island after being on the ship and had been isolating when the person who has now tested positive began displaying symptoms.
B.C. health officials said Saturday that three of the four are now being cared for in hospitals while the fourth person continues to isolate at home.
Dr. Joss Reimer, Canada’s chief public health officer, says her team is working with provincial and territorial counterparts to create national guidance as the country sees both low-risk and higher-risk exposures to hantavirus related to a cluster of cases linked to a cruise ship.
They have been identified as the couple in their 70s from the Yukon, a person in their 70s from Vancouver Island, and a person from B.C. in their 50s who lives abroad.
Saxinger said being elderly puts someone at higher risk of severe outcomes from the illness.
She said the group was transferred from the ship in a medically secure way and then were handled appropriately when they landed.
“And so I don’t think that it really changes the risk equation for anybody else,” she said.
So far, 12 worldwide cases of hantavirus have been linked to the cruise ship, including the one Canadian.
On Thursday, Canada’s chief public health officer said 26 people from across the country who were considered low risk were asked to monitor for symptoms, while another nine, including the couple, were classified as high risk.
Those high-risk people in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. were asked to isolate, and were being monitored.
