Why is contact tracing important?
Public health officials across multiple countries are in the process of tracing those who may have come into contact with passengers on board the MV Hondius who have contracted the Andes strain of hantavirus. Further tracing is expected to ramp up with the ship set to arrive in the Canary Islands on May 10.
It’s unclear how many of the approximately 32 MV Hondius passengers and one crew member who left the vessel when it docked at the South Atlantic island of St. Helena on April 24 could have been exposed to the virus, but health officials will need to track them down and, if they are infected, anyone else they may have come in contact with.
Contact tracing is something that much of the global public became familiar with at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But contact tracing in this situation is different according to
Dr. Anna Banerji, an infectious diseases and tropical diseases specialist at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana school of public health.
COVID-19 is highly infectious and spread through sharing the same air as infected individuals.
“This is nothing like COVID,” Banerji said.
Contact tracing in this situation, Banerji said, may be similar to outbreaks of diseases like tuberculosis and measles, which are also spread by prolonged and close contact.
“With measles,” she said, “they looked at who got sick, who is in their immediate family, who’s at risk [and] who’s not vaccinated.”
There is no vaccine or antiviral treatment for hantavirus, but Banerji said contact tracing would help determine who may need to isolate as a result of potential exposure to the virus.
