A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
An international team of disease detectives is racing to connect with people who were on the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak. It's an effort to contain the spread of the infection. More than two dozen people have already left the ship and flown across the world, including to South Africa, Switzerland and the United States. Science reporter Ari Daniel is following this. Ari, tell us what's the latest.
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: Well, authorities say eight cases have now been reported, A. Five are confirmed hantavirus, and so far, three people have died. Now, it's important to note that public health officials are stressing that the risk level remains low. This strain of hantavirus, which shows up as a respiratory infection, appears to spread through close and prolonged contact, and it seems that people are infectious for a rather brief period of time. So authorities are saying this is not the start of the next pandemic, but it is a disease that should be taken seriously, and epidemiologists want to make sure it doesn't spread.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So how are they trying to keep this outbreak under control?
DANIEL: The primary tool they're using is something called contact tracing, which essentially means locating the close contacts of anyone who could've been exposed to the virus. Preeti Malani is an infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan.
PREETI MALANI: By identifying people who are at risk of infection, you try to get ahead when people don't have symptoms yet, with the goal of preventing the infection from continuing to propagate.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Ari, I mean, I remember this from the early days of COVID.
DANIEL: That's exactly right. This is a time-tested approach for containing infectious disease. The process starts by identifying someone with an infection or a suspected infection of, in this case, hantavirus. Then experts look to see who they've recently had close contact with, since those people are more likely to have been infected. And that risk assessment is important, says Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases doctor at Emory University.
BOGHUMA TITANJI: Otherwise, it becomes an impossible web to contain because everyone is connected to everyone.
DANIEL: The next step, A, involves taking precautions for those who are infected or who may be infected but aren't showing symptoms yet.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Precautions, what are we talking about?
DANIEL: Well, potentially placing them in quarantine so they don't accidentally come into contact with even more people who may then become exposed and infected. The tricky thing here is the incubation period for this hantavirus can last up to several weeks.
MARTÍNEZ: Several weeks. Yikes. I mean, that's a long time to wait things out. So it sounds like it's pretty painstaking work.
DANIEL: It absolutely is because you have to reconstruct all the interactions someone has had over days or weeks. Titanji offered this hypothetical example from onboard the cruise ship.
TITANJI: So you might have an individual who is a source of an infection, and then they were sitting at a dinner table with one individual who then goes back to their cabin and shares a bed with their partner, who has a conversation with someone else on the deck.
DANIEL: In other words, that initial source can easily connect with many more people. Public health officials believe this approach will reduce further spread. And yesterday, the World Health Organization insisted this effort could break the chain of transmission, thereby preventing a large epidemic.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's science reporter Ari Daniel. Ari, thanks.
DANIEL: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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