Visitor to Canada isolating in Peel Region due to possible hantavirus exposure

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A third person now in isolation in Ontario because of the hantavirus is in Peel Region, Health Minister Sylvia Jones confirms.

Ontario health officials said Friday that two people from the same household were isolating in the Grey-Bruce counties area. Jones said that couple continues to be asymptomatic.

Federal health officials said Friday a third person from Ontario may have had brief contact with a confirmed case on a flight.

“The couple in Gray-Bruce absolutely is still self-isolating. They continue to be asymptomatic and obviously the local public health unit is monitoring closely,” Jones said Monday. “We do have a third individual in the Peel Region who is also isolating and being monitored by the local public health unit.”

In a statement, Peel Public Health said it is monitoring one person who had contact with a confirmed case, but clarified that person is a visitor to Canada rather than a resident of Peel Region.

“The person is currently well and has no symptoms. They are staying in isolation and are receiving daily support from Peel Public Health,” the health unit said in its statement. “We have clear protocols in place to support this person during quarantine and to ensure timely access to health care if needed.”

The statement said the risk to the broader Peel community is “very low” and that residents do not need to take any additional precautions.

Health officials have said that hantavirus, a rare, but potentially deadly disease, does not spread easily from person-to-person. According to the World Health Organization, the disease is usually spread through contact with the urine, feces or saliva of infected rats.

So far, an outbreak associated with an Atlantic cruise ship, the MV Hondius, has resulted in eight cases, including three deaths.

People in isolation not being tested for now

Jones said that while the three individuals are following isolation protocols, they are not being tested at the moment.

“Initial conversations and feedback, knowledge from Dr. Kieran Moore, suggests that testing on asymptomatic (people) may not have the appropriate results.” Jones said. “It may not be the best way to monitor. That’s why these three individuals are self-isolating, so we can see if there are any symptoms that come forward.”

Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious diseases specialist at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, told CTV News Monday it’s important to distinguish between those who are being monitored for symptoms and those who have actually become ill.

“These people, it’s very important to say that they’re not individuals who are having symptoms, necessarily. They’re being monitored if they develop symptoms. And this is exactly what the protocol entails,” Chakrabarti said.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore has said the province received best practices from Argentina around possible incubation periods for hantavirus since that country has more experience dealing with the virus and plans to monitor contacts for 45 days.

“We have to also remember that this is a relatively rare type of infection, so we are still learning from it,” Chakrabarti said. “And when you have such a long incubation period, you have to be careful that you have to watch people for the entire time.”

But he emphasized that even if the virus is able to spread from person-to-person, “it’s not like COVID” in terms of the ease of transmission.

“Most of the other hantaviruses do not transmit from person to person. This strain just happens to,” Chakrabarti said. “It looks like the viral sequence of this (strain), the DNA sequence is pretty much the same. It’s a little bit different, but I’m not worried about this really changing, in a major extent, turning into something like a pandemic virus.”

He described the outbreak associated with the MV Hondius as occurring from a “perfect storm” of circumstances and doesn’t see it as a failure of the system.

“We know that these types of things exist in the environment,” Chakrabarti said, noting that in part that’s why epidemiology exists.

“If anything, they were able to identify it fairly quickly once they saw two deaths on the ship. But again, these things happen sporadically. That’s why we study them.”