California Monitors 4 Residents for Andes Hantavirus Exposure After South Africa Flight
Updated
Updated · KCRA Sacramento · May 12
California Monitors 4 Residents for Andes Hantavirus Exposure After South Africa Flight
8 articles · Updated · KCRA Sacramento · May 12
Four California residents are being monitored after Andes hantavirus exposure, including a Sacramento County resident who sat within two seats of an infected passenger removed from a South Africa flight before takeoff.
Two of the four were exposed on the MV Hondius cruise ship route, with one Santa Clara resident now home and symptom-free and two others among 16 Americans sent to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
None of the Californians have tested positive or developed symptoms, and state health officials said the risk to the general public remains extremely low.
Three deaths have been linked to the outbreak so far, while at least six other confirmed or suspected cases are under quarantine, including a French patient in Paris and an asymptomatic American in Nebraska.
Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to spread person-to-person, though California said such transmission has followed close, prolonged contact; the state has recorded 99 hantavirus cases since 1980, none previously from Andes virus.
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