A resident of Illinois is suspected of having contracted hantavirus, raising concerns even though he was not part of the cruise ship associated with the recent global outbreak.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has announced an investigation into a potential case of hantavirus in Winnebago County, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stepping in for further testing.
The CDC has advised that results from their tests may take up to 10 days, during which the individual will be closely monitored.
Authorities confirmed that the man had no connection to the MV Hondius cruise ship, where an outbreak last month resulted in 11 cases and three fatalities due to the virus.
According to IDPH, the Illinois resident likely contracted the virus through exposure to rodent droppings while engaged in cleaning activities at a residence.
Dr. Alfredo Mena Lora, an infectious disease expert at Saint Anthony Hospital, explained to ABC7, “We often encounter cases like this where someone cleans an area infested with rodents, causing the virus in their urine or feces to become airborne.”
Officials said the man showed milk symptoms that did not require hospitalization, and he is recovering as expected. He is believed to have a North African strain that is not spread person to person, and is different to the Andes strain that broke out on the MV Hondius cruise ship.
It comes as an American doctor from Bend, Oregon who took on the role of the cruise ship doctor after its initial doctor fell ill with hantavirus revealed that he has also tested positive for the deadly rat-borne virus.
A man in Illinois is feared to have contracted hantavirus despite not being on the cruise ship linked to a recent outbreak across the globe. Health officials in Tenerife, where the cruise ship docked, are pictured
Oregon doctor Stephen Kornfeld, who took on the role of the cruise ship doctor after its initial doctor fell ill with hantavirus, revealed that he has also tested positive for the deadly rat-borne virus
Dr Stephen Kornfeld, a retired oncologist, was praised after he jumped into action and helped care for sick passengers on the cruise ship when they were struck down with the virus.
Kornfeld told CNN that he has since tested positive for hantavirus, and is in isolation in a biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
He said he is currently symptomless, but cautioned that ‘it is still possible that the test represents an evolving disease, and I will get symptoms down the road. This is why I’m in the biocontainment unit.’
Kornfeld joined the cruise in Argentina last month, and previously told CNN he was expecting the trip of a lifetime sailing through the south Atlantic before the hantavirus outbreak.
He said the voyage fell into chaos when a Dutch couple contracted the hantavirus strain, which is believed to be from a landfill site in Argentina but the source remains under investigation.
Kornfeld said he ‘fell into the role of becoming the ship doctor’ after the onboard medic was also sickened by the virus, and said the doctor and two other people became seriously ill within a day of the outbreak.
He described their symptoms as ‘a lot of fever, fatigue, flushing, some gastrointestinal issues, some shortness of breath.’
‘The fear with hantavirus is you can go from seriously ill to critically ill very quickly,’ he said.
On Monday, 18 passengers who were on the cruise arrived back in the US.
The CDC said it will be monitoring all passengers for symptoms for at least 42 days.
Kornfeld said he felt secure that he would not spread the virus across the US due to the quick actions of health officials.
He said he is isolating in a ‘very secure facility’, so ‘if I am to get sick, there’s no way that virus is getting out of this building.’
