Medics in full hazmat suits rush two hantavirus patients to Atlanta hospital in shocking footage

Two hantavirus-infected cruise passengers have been rushed to hospital after returning home, with footage capturing healthcare workers dashing them into intensive care dressed head-to-toe in hazmat gear and PPE. The pair , who had just returned to the US after a five-week stint on board the MV Hondius , the vessel stricken with the deadly rat-borne virus that prompted an international incident after three passengers died while aboard the ship. Shocking video footage captures healthcare workers rushing out to ambulances in hazmat gear, stretchering off the two patients into critical care at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. The Georgia hospital has since confirmed that both passengers arrived from the MV Hondius cruise ship following the deadly outbreak at sea. One of the two patients is symptomatic and receiving care in Emory’s biocontainment unit, and the other is asymptomatic, undergoing evaluation and monitoring. The two had disembarked the virus-plagued cruise ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak at the Canary island, and have now been transported to Emory University’s Serious Communicable Diseases Unit in Atlanta, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention told the Georgia Department of Public Health on Monday. A spokesperson from the Department of Public Health (DPH) said: "Federal health care workers are taking every precaution needed in each of these cases, and there is no risk to the public at this time." Early symptoms of hantavirus infection include fever, chills, myalgia (muscle aches), headaches, and gastrointestinal symptoms and can become complicated by acute respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure and shock. DPH officials confirmed the US case fatality rate sits at about 35 per cent. There are nearly 40 strains of hantavirus found all over the world, and different strains cause different illnesses, but the rare Andes strain is the only one known to pass between humans. More often, spread occurs from rat faeces, saliva, and urine. But the symptomatic patient on US soil is no cause for alarm, officials have said. Emory University epidemiologist Dr Jodie Guest has revealed that fewer than 900 cases of hantavirus have ever been recorded in US history, with the medical expert dubbing the disease a "dead-end virus". "Normally, we consider the hantavirus a dead-end virus, meaning one person gets it from a rodent, and then that is the only person who will get it," Dr Guest said. "This will not become a global pandemic. The transmission does not work effectively that way." Other health experts have echoed Dr Guest's sentiment in an attempt to allay American fears of a second pandemic. University of Florida Health Shands Hospital chief epidemiologist and an infectious disease expert Dr Nicole Iovine explained that the hantavirus transmits from person to person is not the same as the flu or coronavirus. "These viruses affect the upper airways, mainly, so speaking and coughing can easily transmit it,” Dr Iovine said. "The hantavirus and the Andes virus tend to infect very deep in the lungs, so it is not as easily transmitted through the air." There is no vaccine for the hantavirus infection, as perv the World Health Organisation.