Public concern is rising about the potential for the deadly hantavirus to occur in Australia, following news reports of deaths on a cruise ship and the return of an Australian passenger.
Three senior academics from the University of the Sunshine Coast can discuss the issue from the disciplines of microbiology and nursing (infection prevention and control). They say the risks for Australians are very low at this stage.
UniSC Associate Professor and microbiologist Joanne Macdonald:
“The Andes virus, which has been confirmed in the 2026 cruise ship outbreak, is endemic in Argentina and Chile, and has a specific reservoir host (Oligoryzomys longicaudatus, or long‑tailed pygmy rice rat) which is only found in that region. This is why it hasn’t become endemic anywhere else.
“Andes virus can spread from person to person, but only via close contacts. In the current incident, one of the contacts that has fallen ill is the cruise ship doctor – which makes sense if they were treating the sick patients.
“The chances of an outbreak in Australia are minimal for two reasons:
People would have to be in close contact with the Australian exposed;
We don’t have the reservoir host for it to become endemic.”
UniSC Senior Lecturer in Nursing Matt Mason:
“This situation shows that we need to implement infection prevention and control measures based on the knowledge we gained from experiences with COVID-19.
“Cruise ships continue to face challenges in containing the spread of infectious diseases, and hantavirus is just one example.
“When passengers require medical treatment and ships are denied permission to dock, it raises important questions about the adequacy of public health infrastructure and the difficulty of balancing individual care with broader disease containment measures.
“In some cases, decisions around docking permissions may also reflect political posturing, where governments prioritise projecting an image of control over the immediate health needs of those affected.
“Overall, this is a very low risk to Australia. Assuming any passengers returning home to Australia are well enough to travel, they will require some monitoring for up to six weeks, as the incubation period for hantavirus is quite long.”
UniSC Associate Professor of Microbiology Erin Price:
“I know about hantavirus because of my time living in Southwest USA, a region that has only become a hotspot for this disease in recent decades. They have really good public awareness of this disease and how to avoid it.
“The risk in Australia is extremely low. We’re the only inhabited continent that has never had a recorded case of hantavirus, the same as the plague.
“It's not that we don't have hantavirus here (rodents here have antibodies against it), it’s just that the Australian hantaviruses haven’t jumped from rodents to humans.
“It helps that we're so geographically isolated, so these pathogens have struggled to gain a foothold here, despite huge anthropogenic pressure for disease spread.
“The biggest risk to Australians is when travelling abroad. The Andes virus, which is causing this cruise outbreak, is the only hantavirus that is known to have human-to-human transmission.”
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