Hey, that folks. It is Monday, May fourth, and the same rare virus that killed actor Gene Hackman's wife is now suspected in an outbreak on a cruise ship that has killed at least three people so far. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robe. I have not heard hantavirus since Gene Hackman and his wife died.
And that was the first time I had ever heard of hantavirus. And it is a rare virus, and it's
even rarer. Apparently there is only one strain known in the world to actually spread from human to human, and right now, that is what the World Health Organization believes is happening to a cruise ship that is now stranded out in a very remote part of the world, waiting for coordination and help to get at least two urgently ill crew members off that show and eventually somehow evacuate the one hundred and seventy passengers.
Let's start with our numbers and make sure I have these numbers right, and we'll go through because some of these deaths were not just on the cruise ship. We'll explain. But three dead, right, yes, okay, three sick yes, Now where are those three that are sick.
One of them is a British national who is in a private hospital in Johannesburg.
He is fighting for his life. He is in intensive care.
The other two who are urgently ill and need and require evacuation, are on board the ship right now. One of the dead bodies is on board the ship right now, and to one of the patients died in the hospital after collapsing in the airport, and the other one died at port once he disembarked, but he got sick on board.
Those were the two. That's the elderly couple. Yeah, right, Yeah, that was a tough one to hear.
It's sad because what happened was the seven year old man died once they were in port. She then and his wife, who's sixty nine years old, is arranging her plane ticket to head back home to meet his body back in the Netherlands where they live. She collapses at the airport, is rushed to the hospital and dies shortly after the hospital. So, yes, a married couple died within hours of one another, or at least within a day.
Of each other.
Ah, right, So we have to figure out now here robes what we're dealing with. Let's go back and why this is all important because you just mentioned there's only one particular I mean, this is so rare, but it's not known. It's very specific that passed from human to human that has not been confirmed whether or not it's that yet has it.
They have not confirmed it's the andes virus. But here's the deal. That particular type of the hantavirus is found only in South America. This ship left and I know this port well, in Argentina Ushuaia. It is the gateway to Antarctica. It's how folks go to the remotest islands
in the world, all along Antarctica. It's a tremendous, gorgeous, spectacular, bucket list type of cruise that people wait their whole lives, save up their money to go and see one of the rarest and most remote parts of the world.
So, yes, they left in Argentina.
That is where this particular strain of hantavirus has been found before.
So as you say, there's a bucket list trip, and what we're talking about here, folks, it's been out there on the water for three weeks. This is a month plus tour. So The folks we're talking about on this are probably a lot of elderly folks, probably a lot of retirees. People they got time on their hand, but it's also something they have been waiting for a long time in their life. No, that's not the most important
thing right now. Just to give some context for what this cruise is and where it was heading now, ropes a hantavirus. What this is, they say, is it's found in rat in rodent feces and urine is where it's usually found. You can speculate all day long. You just talked about where the port is. You could talk about what might have been nasty on that ship, But right now we don't know how this thing is being spread around. And that is a really really big deal right now.
Isn't that scary? Because here's the deal.
You've got shared air part of how this is transmitted to humans, even if it's directly from a mouse that may be on board the ship that maybe god on board from Argentina. Maybe some of these folks or one of these folks brought the haunt of virus to the actual ship itself after having been at port there in Ushuaia, Argentina. But imagine this is how you get it. You inhale it. You inhale either dried mouse droppings or that urine as you pointed out. And then yes, if this is spreading
from human to human. The scary thing about this particular disease, this hauntavirus, it rapidly progresses and quickly becomes life threatening. There is a forty percent fatality rate if you get this virus that is so frightening. That's one of the deadliest viruses out there.
And there's no cure for it. They can treat you, they can catch it, they can help you, but they don't you got haunts of virus. They don't go to the shelf and pull off some specific drug. They don't. There is no cure for this thing. So roades the significance there. Well, I think they got They're pretty sure they got everybody at least contained on this same ship. But a woman was walking through the airport right she got to the airport, she got there, she almost gone to plane, for God's sake.
Yes, she was walking through the airport and her husband was walking through the port.
There. So now all the local islands, all.
The coordination, the contact tracing that we unfortunately know all about because of COVID is all going down going on right now, all.
Of these places.
This cruise ship made docks and and port and went into port. Because think about it, yes, a three week cruise already, it's a forty two day cruise. They probably came in contact with a lot of folks and it can take one to eight weeks before symptoms arise, So that's a pretty long period of time. People will have to wait in incubation period of that long up to two months.
That's scary before you're symptomatic at all.
Correct, It can take up to eight weeks before you're symptomatic.
Can you be contagious while you're not symptomatic?
Possibly, they don't know.
This particular strain, they say is so rare and it's only happened in a few cases. Someone put it like this, a medical professional who knows about this disease said, if it's proven that this cruise ship actually had a case of haunted virus that was spread from human to human,
it will change this is a quote. It will change the future of travel medicine and infectious disease and tropical medicine, and it will certainly change how cruise ships operate in these parts of the world, in South America, anywhere this particular virus can be found as rare as is as it is, you can see what happens if unfortunately it somehow makes its way on a cruise ship.
And another part of this, this thing isn't just off the coast of Florida, where you could get all kinds of help, and you can get all kind of they have the best medicine and doctors and equipment, and we can get out to This is Rhodes, like you said, this is off the northern coast of western Africa.
To have a location right Cape Verde, I believe is what it's called.
They're not exactly, they don't have access to the right and where they are in a remote area way out here Ropes. That's a part of the conversation now, Babe.
This cruise ship went through the Drake Passage.
I have done this journey as well, and it looks like the only way they'll be able to get help. And this is what I believe they're trying to coordinate right now, is to get some sort of helicopter, some sort of airlift from the cruise ship to the correct medical facility. The crew members are Dutch nationals, so the Netherlands and then the UK has some passengers on board
as well. They're trying to coordinate to try and see how they can get these passengers off because, as you might imagine, nobody wants them to disembark on their island or come through their or airport or their terminal. No one wants to bring this into their area or their community.
What are's supposed to do, eh, I mean, because we've got a weak one to eight weeks obviously not you can't do. You do not want these They are essentially quarantined right now, and the last thing they want is for these folks to be out in the wind, essentially out there in the world, lying around or floating around robes one to eight weeks. What can they test now? I wonder, is every single passenger going to have to get cleared obviously before they can set foot get home.
The answer to that question is absolutely yes. So they said right now they're trying to coordinate with local health official officials to create some sort of a plan for disembarkation and medical screening of all guests and crews. So again, one hundred and seventy passengers I believe, and seventy crew members when they took off. That is a heck of a lot of people, and right now they're still waiting
for confirmation they leave. It's highly likely that obviously the other two folks who died died of hauntavirus and the three who were sick and to also have it. But they're still even waiting for that official confirmation right now.
So clearly it takes time.
Before these tests can let you know for sure whether or not you have been infected.
Oh, this is look. I know the human life is the most important part here, but what a miserable time for it. Because they're on the ship rode. They still need food, they still need water, they still need things right to be on that ship. And you now in her position, I would assume ropes they're being told to stay away from each other. So they're now hold up in rooms in all likelihood for how long. We don't know that one to eight week thing we just happened
to be. You've probably caught this line. We just happened to be watching Outbreak the other day, where the thing that gave Morgan Freeman comfort about this virus was that it killed so quickly. I said, look, it's twenty four it's twenty four hour incvation period. Look the upside for us, it's these poor bastards don't even live long enough to spread the thing around. So this works in our favor. Roads.
You don't know for one to eight weeks. This could be two months down the road, and somebody could be back home in Germany spreading this around, and we have to stop that. And that's why I wrote this story this morning. Rotes, Yes, it is away from us, it's the distance from us. It's a rare, rare virus. But Robes, what's happening now is how pandemics starts, Yes, how spread. It's how they need to stop a virus because this
thing will beat us if it gets going. And who this is worth paying attention to, folks, because of what we're talking about, how rare and how even rare are robes person to person.
And this is scary if this particular, a particular deadly virulent strain that can spread from human to human has been contained for all this time to basically they Argentina and that's where it stayed. To think that it's now been put on a cruise ship with hundreds of passengers getting on and off this cruise ship.
Granted again in a remote part of the world.
But if they have to head back to hospitals to be treated, to go back to Europe or wherever it is they're from, that is a frightening endeavor that you know, all precautions have to be taken.
So when we come back, we're going to tell you.
About just how rare the hantavirus is and exactly what happens to your body when you contract it.
All right, welcome back here we continue on this. Amy and TJ did not have a hantavirus on the Bingo card for top headlines here owes, but here is where we are. It's a significant story worth paying attention to. Hantavirus is not something most of us think about, talk about, know anything about, but started studying a little bit once Gene Hackman and his wife died because it was found that she had hauntavirus in her system. We are like, what the hell is going on? And now here we are again?
And who knew?
In New Mexico is one of the only places in this country where hauntavirus is known to be prevalent. Again, and that is just a transmission from rodent urine or feces to a human.
You breathe in dried remains.
So they say, if you're vacuuming or sweeping and you have rodents in the area, especially if you live in New Mexico, this is something you have to watch out for. Hadn't heard of it before the Gene Hackman situation. But now here we are on a cruise ship that is literally stuck in a remote part of the world off the coast of Cape Verde, and right now there are.
Two urgently ill crew members.
There is a dead body on board, there was a man fighting for his life in South Africa, and two dead passengers. Now, so this is serious and hauntavirus, as you mentioned Babe, has no known treatment and it rapidly progresses a forty percent fatality rate. But what it does is it causes flu like symptoms where you get fevers, chills, body aches, and headaches. Okay, but then it develops into shortness of breath and then your lungs end up filling with fluids and you either die by lung and or
heart failure. So this is scary. The only thing that they can do in terms of giving you rest and fluids. Is hope that it goes away on its own, that your body is able to fight it, and in worst case scenarios, they'll put you on a ventilator, but with a death rate. The way that is it is this is a scary, scary disease that no one wants to mess with.
So what'd you say? Shows up for a symptom wise flu like symptoms?
So you might just think, oh, I've got a headache, and I think that is what the man when he was disembarking was complaining of a headache, feeling.
A little achy, you know.
And so it starts out where you just think I caught something, I've come down with something. Then it rapidly progresses, but the onset of that flu like symptoms can take several weeks.
And that's the scary, scary, scary part.
By the way, the CDC has been tracking this disease since it began its surveillance in nineteen ninety three, there have only been eight hundred and ninety known cases. That is how rare this disease is, and that is why this is such an unbelievably rare occurrence.
To have something like this happen.
That was a US number you just gave, right.
That was I believe eight. Well look they said, okay, that's a good point.
I guess our in the United States eight hundred and ninety cases of hantavirus since surveillance began in nineteen ninety three.
So we are that's still nine hundred cases in thirty years, right, what are we doing?
Yeah?
Right, yes, and we have never heard of it. Very rare, very rare, and very scary. And Lord knows the health authorities there in that area and certainly back in the home countries that these passengers are working around the clock to try and come up with some sort of an evacuation plan for these folks who right now are floating at sea and probably nervous as hell because you don't.
Know if you're sick, and if you are, you don't have any specialty equipment there to treat you.
This.
I mean, I hate a one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy seve hundred.
And seventy passengers and seventy crew members.
This is going This will be a story to follow for the week, not just for what is robes going on on that ship, but what possibly is going on wherever it has stopped, and whoever that airport, are they screening those anybody she might have come in contact with, and we robes. We've seen these movies, but that tracing of a virus is some very significant detective work. Yes, that's going on.
And I can tell you that having gone through Ushuaia, Argentina and trying to get back into the United States and literally this was just after COVID, so all of these protocols were in place. We had to go through five different airports to go through an airport that was verified by the United States as able to handle dealing with the coronavirus.
That was, however, many years ago.
Now with something like this, just these types of airports and ports don't have the screening capabilities that we're used to in our western civilization. So this is going to be an extra difficult task for local officials. And we will of course stay on top of the story, keep you updated on it for you, But in the meantime, thank you for listening to us.
As always, I made me Roebuck alongside T. J. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.