The individual was apparently diagnosed with the rodent-borne virus after taking a flight alongside someone with the disease, marking the first confirmed infection in someone with no direct connection to the MV Hondius. Three further patients have been evacuated for treatment elsewhere, including a British medic from the ship, a sailor of Dutch nationality, and one German guest. World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus has said the trio is currently “on their way to receive medical care in the Netherlands.” Another person has been hospitalized in Zurich, where authorities insist there is “no risk to the Swiss public.” The pathogen behind the outbreak, dubbed the Andes virus, stands alone among hantaviruses for its ability to spread between humans, with a mortality rate that may reach 40 percent. A Dutch woman aged 69 left the vessel at Saint Helena, flew onward to Johannesburg, and died there—potentially exposing as many as 114 fellow travelers.
why is that?
Everything eats something else. Lose the birds and you lose pollinators and insect control, lose the mesopredators and you lose small animal control, lose the large predators and that’s usually a species with a low population density and a long aging process. With any of those you create overpopulation in the species they’d otherwise control.
so you’re referring to if both the predator and the prey can host the disease right? like mammal predators get wiped out, leading to bird overpopulation, leading to lots of new strains
sorry if it’s obvious I just didn’t get the connection lol
There’s the mutation risk when it crosses between species, especially now that it’s firmly established in mammals. What concerns me is the spread of other diseases. Hantavirus doesn’t normally pop up on my radar because rodent populations are suppressed by the predators now dying after eating infected birds. Birds are helping to control the local mosquito populations that are bringing new tropical diseases northward with climate change, along with agricultural pests and the crop diseases they spread. Our scavengers keep corpses from rotting into waterways, our mountain lions attack the weak elk and deer that carry chronic wasting disease, the warmest year in history is bringing a plague of ticks that can disable you for life, and other weakened wildlife carry parasites that would normally open them up to predation. When the ecosystems are thrown out of relative balance, there’s no telling how that failure will cascade. Avian flu here is killing mountain lions that have a population density of 2-4 lions per 100km^2 and it can take upwards of 2-3 years for them to reach sexual maturity. Each one kills around 50 large animals per year and each of those species is the host for something bad.
interesting times huh…
thanks for explaining!