“India has nothing to worry about. The disease does not spread like influenza. However, agencies concerned, such as ICMR and NCDC, are keeping a close watch and are in touch with World Health Organization experts,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The development comes after the World Health Organization stated on Friday that the public risk posed by the deadly hantavirus strain linked to the cruise ship outbreak was minimal because transmission occurs only through very close contact. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier, addressing a press briefing in Geneva, described the virus as dangerous primarily to infected individuals while stressing that the risk to the wider population remained “absolutely low.”
India’s only indigenous hantavirus serotype is the Thottapalayam virus, first isolated in 1964 at Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. Scientific studies later documented the identification of the country’s first indigenous hantavirus in a non-rodent species in 1966 during Japanese encephalitis field research conducted in South India. The virus was isolated from the spleen of a shrew, Suncus murinus, captured in Vellore.
Despite the early discovery of the virus, only a limited number of human infections have been documented in India, all originating from southern states. A seroepidemiological study conducted by Christian Medical College, Vellore, and published in the Indian Journal of Molecular Microbiology in 2008 reported a 4 percent prevalence of hantavirus infections in the country.
In one of the documented cases, a 46-year-old quarry worker in Andhra Pradesh tested positive for the virus in 2007. The largest known cluster emerged in 2008 when 28 rat and snake catchers in Vellore were found infected, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
Health experts have noted that none of the reported Indian cases involved human-to-human transmission. Researchers, however, cautioned that the actual number of infections could be higher because of limited diagnostic facilities and the possibility of symptoms being overlooked in regions where the disease is not considered endemic.
Hantaviruses are zoonotic rodent-borne pathogens known to cause two major clinical syndromes: hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome is commonly found in Europe and Asia, while hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is largely associated with the Americas. Reported Indian patients primarily suffered from severe renal disease, renal failure, and high fever.
Available scientific research indicates that humans are accidental hosts and usually become infected after inhaling aerosols contaminated by infected rodents’ urine, saliva, or feces. Rodents remain the natural carriers of the virus and typically develop persistent infections. Human-to-human transmission continues to be considered extremely rare.
The latest cruise ship outbreak has renewed global attention on hantavirus surveillance and preparedness, even as international health authorities and Indian agencies maintain that the threat to the broader public remains limited.
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