Overview
- Venezuela confirmed three deaths from hantavirus infections and reported two additional suspected hantavirus deaths of health workers that are under investigation, officials said Tuesday.
- The Health Ministry described the Anzoátegui and Barinas events as isolated and stated there is no scientific evidence of sustained person-to-person transmission in the country.
- The Venezuelan Medical Federation said the three confirmed victims in Anzoátegui were members of the same family in the rural Miranda municipality, which suggests a shared environmental rodent exposure rather than community spread.
- Global concern is heightened by a separate Andes-hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise earlier this year because the Andes strain has rarely shown person-to-person spread, though most hantaviruses transmit from rodents to people.
- Authorities have deployed public-health teams to the affected states to boost testing, surveillance and cleaning of rodent-contaminated sites, and public guidance stresses reducing contact with rodent droppings and using protective cleaning methods.