GERM
00:00:09.360 – 00:00:12.080
Mari mari kompuche. My name is Germ.

WORM
00:00:12.080 – 00:00:13.040
I’m Worm.

GERM
00:00:13.120 – 00:00:26.320
Welcome to episode 104 of the Germ and Worm Travel Health Podcast. Don’t be daunted by Hanta. It’s a big planet. See it in good health. I’m Dr. Paul Pottinger, also called Germ. I’m a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Washington in Seattle.

WORM
00:00:26.730 – 00:00:34.090
I’m Dr. Chris Sanford, also known as Worm, Associate professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Global Health, also at the University of Washington.

GERM
00:00:34.250 – 00:01:47.780
Chris, we’re talking about hantavirus today and that’s, that’s our pleasure to talk about this. There’s a lot of topics that are out there in the lay press and as always happens, a lot of confusion. So we’re here to bust some myths, dispel some confusion, and answer the questions which are wonderful coming to us from our listeners.

Some of the questions we’ll answer today include, what are the risks with hantavirus when traveling, especially when cruising, and will this virus come here to us in the United States? Like two of the people who died on the hondius? I’m a bird watcher. What is my risk of catching hantavirus when I go bird spotting? I have seen mouse droppings in an Airbnb that I’m planning to go to. Is that a risk for hantavirus? And on a recent road trip, my car came home with mice under the hood. What should I do?

These questions and more reminder to our listeners. Please reach out to us with your own travel health questions, your stories, or your tips for success.

You want a clarification on something you heard on a recent episode, just drop us a line germandworm.com or send us an email germandworm@gmail.com

Before we jump in. As usual, our medical disclaimer. This podcast is designed to inform, inspire and entertain, but you should not use this podcast as clinical care before you travel. Please see a qualified healthcare professional for recommendations specific to you and to your itinerary.

WORM
00:01:48.500 – 00:01:52.820
Paul, maybe you can start us off. Give us please a definition of hantavirus.

GERM
00:01:53.960 – 00:04:34.600
Yeah, hantavirus. What the heck? So first of all, what’s the name? Where does it even come from?

So the name originates from the Hantan Peninsula in Korea during the Korean conflict between China and the United States. That area of Korea.

What we found was that service personnel were coming down with an infection that was similar to influenza but different in some other ways.

And this was ultimately traced to a virus coming out of the urine, the feces, the droppings of Rats and mice, rodents, down in the trenches in that part of the world where service personnel were breathing in dust that was befouled and besoiled and besmirched, contaminated with what ultimately was found to be, yes, a viral particle. That viral particle we called Hantaan virus.

And now, because we realize that the spread and the presence of this family of viruses is actually global, we no longer call it Hantaan virus, we call it hantavirus. It’s still a nod to that historical discovery, but the reality is it’s everywhere. Like, we don’t call it Norwalk virus anymore, do we?

For the nausea and vomiting, we now call it norovirus because they’re related to that. So that’s where the etymology, the word comes from. It’s a nod to the way we found this virus originally.

But the current understanding is that, hey, there are many members of this family of virus. It is not restricted by any means to any part of Korea. In fact, the experience of the MV Hondius down in Antarctica is a reminder of that.

And we’ll talk more about that in a moment. So how do we define it? We define it as a virus. It’s not a bacteria, it’s not a parasite, it’s not a fungus among us.

It is a virus, meaning it is microscopically small, extremely difficult to see, and not detectable with normal microscopy. You can’t do a gram stain of somebody’s sputum and look at it under a light microscope. You need more advanced, powerful detection methods to find it.

And that’s made this whole epidemiology and the diagnosis a bit confusing and, frankly, complicated. If you know what you’re looking for, you can find this virus, but it won’t just show itself to you.

And, you know, the illness that it creates is not necessarily specific enough to tell you that this is for sure a hantavirus infection either. Chris, where does this usually happen? We’re thinking about our. We’re talking about global reach. Okay, it’s everywhere. But is it really everywhere?

Where should our listeners be most concerned about potentially catching hantavirus when they travel?

WORM
00:04:34.760 – 00:05:27.380
Well, as you say, it’s got a worldwide distribution, and it’s complex because different types are in different areas, and there’s over 50 types, so it’s really complex. In the US it’s never gotten big.

In fact, surveillance started in 1993, and since then there have been a little under 900 cases total that have been counted in the United States. As you say, it’s associated with rats and mice and different other types of rodents in the US it’s primarily west of the Mississippi River.

And unfortunately, out of these cases that have happened so far, the fatality rate has been about 1 in 3. So as we’ll talk about in a minute, the risk on cruises is low.

Risk is higher in dry desert areas, areas with a lot of mice and something like a shed where there have been mice and mice droppings.

GERM
00:05:27.940 – 00:10:08.500
Yeah, agree. And you know what happens if you’re exposed to these droppings.

So part of the American experience, and I live and work in the United States, and a lot of what we understand about our local flavor of this relates to something called the virus with no name, Sinumbre virus. Sinnumbre is one of the 50 plus hantavirus varieties that’s described as science.

And that’s the one that you’re actually more at risk of catching if you’re in those high desert chaparral areas. Right. Most of what we know actually originates and dates back to 1993.

And at that time, some very astute clinicians and communities were really impacted by an unexpected catastrophe. Young, healthy people, including husbands, wives, families that were dying of pulmonary hemorrhage and pulmonary edema. These are healthy people.

They’re not smoking. There was no reason for them to have this. And initially the medical examiner was not able to determine what had triggered this.

Very astute people reached out to Centers for Disease Control, who appropriately did the exact right thing, which was to send officers from the Epidemics Intelligence Service, eis, initially, I think, to Gallup and then ultimately to Albuquerque, where clinical information came together.

One of those young, brilliant medical doctors is Dr. Jeff Duchin, a friend of mine, colleague here on faculty at uw, and of course, director of Public health for many years at Public Health, Seattle, King County. So friend, hero, and that’s how he got his start as a young epidemics intelligence officer.

And what they realized right away was, look, why are people dying of pulmonary edema? Edema, meaning fluid in the lungs. There’s no reason for this to happen. There could be something in the environment.

There could be a bad case of the flu, or maybe there’s something new, something not known to science, something that we will discover in this epidemic, in this investigation. And of course, that’s what this turned out to be, which was ultimately called cynumbre virus.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest to you that this is what our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is great at.

This is what they are so known for, which is responding rapidly in a scientific, organized way that’s compassionate and figuring out well, they’re solving mysteries and it’s why when that program was eliminated under Doge Elon Musk, when he summarily cut it out, people were so angry that they had to reinstate it. Currently, EIS does still exist and the people who work there are spectacular. One of our own graduates, I guess she’s graduating next week.

Dr. Jerika Werner is going to start her station there at eis. Soon enough she’ll be in the state of Minnesota, I believe, for most of her tour. That’s exciting and I love knowing that she’s out there.

If something comes to the state of Minnesota, she’ll be on it to do this investigation.

I’m just laying that out there to say that whether you’re traveling or staying at home, this is why we need to support a strong and well funded center for Disease Control. Anyway, what we know today about what happens in that part of the world comes from that original investigation. It’s still important.

You know, we lost one of our heroes. One of my favorite actors, right, Gene Hackman ultimately died because of this infection.

We don’t think that he actually had the infection, but his care provider was his wife. She did die, according to the medical examiner of Sinambre virus down in the desert southwest.

And because she was caring for him, he was not able, able to survive. So this still happens. It’s still an issue. And when people die of this infection, right, Chris, they, they drown in their own juices.

I mean, that one in three case fatality rate you’re talking about, it’s, it’s leakage of fluid. You’re basically your liquid component of your blood that gets into the airways. It’s still not totally clear why that happens. Right.

We know that there’s a tropism, predilection of the viral particles for the pulmonary capillaries, the blood vessels in your lungs. The virus loves to go there.

That’s true for other viruses, but this one really calls in a very, very robust, profound, overly exuberant immune response. When the immune system gets activated in those blood vessels of the airways of the lungs, they cause leakage.

And when that fluid leaks, it goes into the airways and then, you know, you can’t exchange gas and you basically drown. It’s a horrible disease, difficult to manage and does not have a spec antiviral treatment, unfortunately.

Let’s talk a little bit, please, about the different strains because this is a bad disease to have. No one wants to get it. The question is, how do you catch it? We’ve been talking a lot about Mice and rats, right, Chris? Rodents.

And so just don’t breathe in their urine or their feces. What was it about this particular experience on the cruise ship that made that story a little more complicated?

WORM
00:10:08.660 – 00:11:16.570
Well, remember I said that there were over 50 different types of hantavirus and interestingly, the transmission is different as a rule. Thank goodness they’re not spread person to person. However, this Andes strain in Argentina is the exception.

It can be in close quarters, spread person to person.

And so what you have on a cruise ship is a lot of people in closed space and they’re coughing on each other and possibly engaging in activities more intimate. Still and tragically, where all this recent information comes from is that there was an outbreak on this cruise boat and this happened in April.

And There have been 10 confirmed cases and two suspected cases directly linked to this outbreak, with three deaths, including a married couple, a couple of murders that we’re going to talk about. So, again, the reason that this was so newsworthy is it was spread person to person because these people were in close contact.

So to the extent that happens with Hanta, that’s a real game changer. And I’m really glad that’s not the case with the variety which is found in the Four Corners area in the United States and in most parts of the world.

GERM
00:11:16.810 – 00:13:28.890
I remember was lucky to be asked to serve as a visiting professor at the Holloway ID Update, which is hosted by Christianicare in Delaware. And they pitched a case to me, a cold case. I was on stage and they were describing a case that sounded for all the world like hantavirus.

The wrinkle in that case was the returning traveler had indeed been in Latin America. So that really raised that question.

Could this be a case not only of Hanta back in the east coast of the US but Hanta that was acquired from this Andean strain.

And that’s a big deal, because if you have somebody in the hospital who’s being cared for with hantavirus, usually we can go about our business under standard precautions. This does not spread person to person if the Andean strain is very different.

And you could well imagine it spreading from patient to nurse to doctor to family members. And so this could happen in the healthcare context. And as you said, cruise ships. Wow. Wow, what a magnifying glass. It’s like a crucible, right?

To really encourage the spread of any number of infections. We’ve talked so many times about norovirus and diarrheal illness. What if the same thing could be true here with respect to Hanta?

So that was the big concern, wasn’t it, for the investigators in real time trying to figure out what to do. By the way, this, you know, this. It’s not like we had CDC down there working on this. This is a cruise to Antarctica. It’s just about as remote.

Take it from me. I was just cruising to Antarctica a few months ago. I mean, it was. This one strikes me close to home.

It was really concerning to me, the thought that there would be some sort of enormous, scary, deadly respiratory infection cruising through a cruise ship like this. So major, hats off to the people who dealt with this. We had loss of life in the case of the MV Hondius. Right. We had a couple who had.

Who had, we think, been the initial couple to do this, to bring the infection aboard and then spread to others aboard the cruise ship. Even the dedicated ship’s doctor became ill. And so there was a volunteer doctor, cancer specialist, who stepped up to do that work.

Mad respect to everyone on the cruise, including that person whose actual story I think you can read about in more detail if you’re interested in New York Times and elsewhere. Yeah.

WORM
00:13:28.890 – 00:14:11.150
The good news is, is that there’s millions, tens of millions of people who cruise every year. About 40 million people go on a cruise. About half of those are Americans.

And there were 10 confirmed cases and three deaths, which of course every death is tragic. But looking at the numbers, if I was going to take a cruise, I wouldn’t avoid it because of hantavirus.

If you were to say before a cruise, well, what should I be concerned about health wise, in general? I would say not very much. Cruises tend to be very safe to the extent you want to minimize infectious diseases.

The usual stuff we say, get your flu shot, get your COVID vaccine, things like that. Paul, what would you say, infectious disease wise, what are top concerns on a cruise?

GERM
00:14:11.310 – 00:16:25.250
I mean, it’s. You had me at norovirus. Right. That cruises are just known for the diarrheal illness piece.

And we do not, unfortunately, have a good vaccine for norovirus. We talked about why it’s just a very diverse family of viruses.

That’s when the only thing you can do is wash your damn hands with soap open water early and often. And the cruise ships have a lot of environmental work to do. So that’s what I think about. And then just not getting drunk and falling overboard.

So when it comes to the hantavirus piece. Yeah, that’s. That’s right. This is unprecedented. Right.

And that’s why I think it has captured the event imagination of so many appropriately so when we were down there cruising Julie, my wife and I down in Antarctica, we boarded in Ushuaia, Argentina.

And I remember looking, this was with a different cruise line, a different ship, but I remember walking up to the boat, looking at the lines, the ropes that connect the boat to the dock. And there were no, what do you call those little cone of shame thing you put around the rat guards. There were no rat guards on the ropes.

And I remember thinking, oh man, what if we’re gonna get plague up in here? What if there’s gonna be a lot of rats aboard? And it turns out that there’s. It just doesn’t usually happen.

I’ve talked to several cruise captains about this. They said it’s just not a thing in Ushuaia. And that really caught my imagination when this story broke.

Because I have to confess, I think I got it wrong. I thought that we had a rat infested MV hondius and people just getting separate independent rat borne infections.

Because my gosh, it can’t be the Andean strain. Well, it turns out that in fact that’s exactly what happened. Right. This almost certainly came aboard through human beings, not rats.

Those humans had been infected by rats. We’ll talk about that in a second. But basically this became person to person spread. And so look, this was hantavirus. It’s very unusual.

This is not unusual to see with influenza, it’s not unusual to see with COVID it’s not unusual to see with rhinovirus. Other human coronaviruses, Respiratory viruses spread like wildfire on cruise ships all the time. So if you’re sick, please don’t go.

And if you do, please, for God’s sakes, quarantine yourself away in your cabin so you don’t spread it around. So in addition to diarrheal illnesses, respiratory viruses do spread.

But I would not let that deter me in this context from going on a cruise like this.

WORM
00:16:31.490 – 00:16:38.930
Now, Paul, with this outbreak, do people in the US need to be concerned about this strain of Hanta coming to the US and spreading?

GERM
00:16:40.210 – 00:18:47.540
Concerned? No, I think grateful for the work of public health. Here’s what we have.

Basically anyone who is on that boat, and the story, by the way, is very complicated because we had people getting sick, even dying bodies being moved around, people disembarking in different areas, different times so that the onward spread, that’s the concern. Is it possible that someone could leave, let’s say, the MV hondius or any other cruise ship and then travel and bring it with them?

That’s the issue because we know that biologically this can happen. It’s ultra fascinating. There were a number of illnesses as you mentioned.

Even it’s starting to look like there are some people who did not have a clinical illness but who had a positive serology. In other words, they had a good immune response to this infection.

The case fatality rate may not be as high as we originally were concerned about in this particular case, but the concern for spread is there. And in fact, if you look online, it’s stunning to see how many secondary cases have had to be tracked and screened.

In other words, if you had one person from the cruise ship get onto an airplane, right. Fly home, then theoretically everyone on that airplane would also potentially be exposed and they all have to be notified and traced.

So that contact tracing piece is enormous. There’s hundreds of people because of this concern for international air travel.

Hundreds of people in many countries around the world who have to be traced. I mean this is a, in a way it’s a nice warning, an allegory for our current situation with international travel. Right.

Because you can get most anywhere within a day and people do, it’s wonderful. Love international air travel. I do it, I want to do it more. This is the problem with it.

It’s not just the expensive gas going up because of the straight of whore moves. This is the real issue, which is that if somebody’s sick it is doggone difficult to be able to track people down.

Isn’t it wonderful, Chris, that we have something called a World Health Organization? I would call it the who. It’s a wonderful thing because something they can do which is to help coordinate some of these international contact tracing.

Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if we actually left the World Health Organization? Wouldn’t that be a terrible idea?

WORM
00:18:47.540 – 00:18:51.660
Well, this group doesn’t need any funding from large well to do countries, does it?

GERM
00:18:51.740 – 00:19:57.280
Especially when so many of the people involved are American citizens. Yeah, sorry for the sass, but it just. It’s another example of why who. Look, it has its bureaucracy, it has its issues, it is a force for good.

It’s something we should spend more on, not be a moron and spend less on, on that outbreak. Anyway, the point is, in spite of all that contact tracing that has happened this way, Chris.

No, to answer your question, there is not a single documented secondary or onward spread case. It has not happened. My point is not that that’s high risk. I don’t think it is.

It looks like the generations of infection really seems to in this case flame out after one spread from one person. To the next, a secondary tertiary case does not seem to be happening.

Having said so, it’s just a warning that this is actually difficult thing to do and we should invest more in our public health. Okay, so with that in mind, Chris, here’s a question from one of our listeners. Like two of the people who died on the hondius, I am a bird watcher.

What is my risk of catching hantavirus when I go bird spotting?

WORM
00:19:57.680 – 00:20:51.320
The good news is it’s really, really low. This just is not a common infection. However, to some extent, it depends where you sleep.

If you’re in your basic hotel room or if you’re camping, your risk is just minuscule. Where would your risk be higher?

It would be higher if you’re in a cabin where there are obvious rodent droppings, maybe a shed, maybe you’re cleaning out a shed. Any exposure to the fumes, the dust, rodent droppings that have been aerosolized, are going to elevate your risk. Most birdwatchers don’t do that.

If you’re staying in your basic well kept hotel or Airbnb, your risk is minuscule.

So Paul and I were just talking before this recording, you know, as opposed to something like Leishmanias, which, which leishmaniasis, which does happen in bird watchers. Hanta really is not something that is very actionable. Just your risk is tiny. These people had very bad luck to get this.

GERM
00:20:51.480 – 00:21:59.070
I think that’s right. And as I understand it, you know, before the cruise began, they wanted to see all the birds they could see, which is a beautiful part of the world.

Tierra del Fuego, right, the tip of South America. And it’s true, there’s all kinds of birds down there, including aquatic birds, birds you wouldn’t see anywhere else.

And so they did something was really smart. Ask a local guide, where can we see birds? And the answer is go to the dump. I mean, they went to a garbage dump as a landfill. That is a garbage dump.

I did not visit that particular garbage dump myself when I was getting ready to cruise to Antarctica because I didn’t want to see a garbage dump. But if you want to see birds, that’s one way to do it. Here in North America, we do this all the time.

If you want to see where the bald eagles are, you go to the dump, right? This is a classic thing up in Skagway, etc. So they did the same.

And so the hypothesis to this questioner, what we think probably happened, is that they were exposed to rodent feces droppings.

Urine when they were at the dump that they probably kicked around somehow, even though they were outdoors, somehow they were exposed to a large amount of this infectious particle that they breathed in at that time.

WORM
00:21:59.950 – 00:22:21.690
Yeah, that’s a really interesting risk factor. And you know what that makes me think of? Unfortunately, Havana currently is because they’re being deprived of gasoline.

Their trash is piling up in urban areas at a really alarming rate. Trash attracts rodents and certainly I’ve heard of no cases of hanta coming out of Cuba recently, but it’s a risk factor, so I’m staying tuned.

GERM
00:22:22.010 – 00:23:28.300
I would, I mean, how would we hear of anything coming out? All I hear about coming out of Cuba is chaos. They are, they have no power, the services are cut off.

This American embargo of fuel to Cuba is outrageous for so many reasons. And here’s yet another example. I’m not saying I like the regime down there. I don’t, I don’t even know much about the regime.

But the people don’t need to suffer this way. And I promise you that’s a really good point, Chris. I hadn’t even thought about that. But this is high risk for hantavirus.

It’s going to be high risk, potentially even for other rodent borne issues. And so yeah, please don’t, please don’t do this.

This makes me hopping mad to think that that’s one of the other potential things that’s coming out of it. The fact that we have not heard about cases coming out of Cuba.

Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me a bit because they just don’t have time to do this kind of surveillance because they’re keep the lights on. And so as always, public health is always the most important thing and it’s always the least well funded. And that’s another example.

It’s going to be innocent civilians who are going to be. Well, the suffering down there must be terrible.

And to be a physician, a public health worker in that context, I can only imagine how difficult that’s going to be.

WORM
00:23:28.620 – 00:23:55.550
Yeah, and just to go on again briefly with this Cuba tangent, another thing that happens with garbage is you get little areas of standing water. Well, that means mosquitoes. Well, that means dengue and chikungunya and malaria. So yeah, it’s just bad in everyone way. Paul, question for you.

Another listener. Hey, I saw some mouse droppings in an Airbnb cabin. So is that a risk and what should I do?

GERM
00:23:56.430 – 00:27:11.410
Thank you very much for reaching out about this. Yes, that is a risk factor. That’s indeed how we think you would typically catch a case of hantavirus.

When you see mouse droppings, it means that there’s currently or has recently been a rodent infestation. So one question that comes up a lot is, well, it looks like they’re old and dry poops. Is the virus really still there?

Could it be inactivated just with old age or something?

And it’s true that these RNA viruses are not as hardy as they might be, as if they were DNA viruses, but even so, no, unfortunately this is a risk factor and that virus can absolutely stay infectious in dried out mouse poop. In fact, that’s I think, how this usually happens, right? It’s not the moist little turd that comes out the butthole of a mouse, that’s not the issue.

It’s when it turns to dust and gets broken up and kicked up, that’s the problem. So when you come into a cabin like this, please inspect it. You’re looking for bed bugs, right? We talked about how to do that.

But you’re also looking for mouse poop, number one, just kind of gross. And you’re paying somebody to stay here, so that’s a problem.

Number two, if you do not, if you find mouse droppings and you do not have another opportunity for, or making a change to a different kind of accommodation, you may have to do some remediation. I could just imagine that happening.

I’m going to tell you what you’re supposed to do and then you can decide how much of this you want to put into action. Right? But basically the key is to reduce the dust.

What I do not want you to do is walk into a house like this, go into the broom closet, find a broom and start sweeping it up. That everyone’s intuition, that’s wrong. Because what you’re going to do then is kick up the dust and make things worse.

No, what we want to do is damp it down and in fact a solution of water and bleach, chlorinated water is what you should be able to spray on any of these areas. Let it soak in. Number one, the bleach will kill a lot of the virus. Number two, you’re just making it heavy.

So when you then go ahead and clean it up with disposable rags, paper towels, that you’re not going to breathe it in. I would still ask you to wear a high quality respirator when you do this and gloves. You don’t want to come into contact with this physically.

Your eyes, your mucous membranes, your nose, your mouth, mouth, even your fingertips. And when you’re so, in other words, don’t let it touch you, don’t let it come into you by breathing.

And when you’re done, of course, you know, you dispose of all that disposable gear and wash your hands. Does that sound like a Hazmat cleanup crew? Hell, yeah. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.

This is literally a hazardous material, a biohazard, and you need to be very aggressive in the way that you clean it up.

A lot of our friends out there in German Worm Nation who are adventuresome travelers, they may not travel with a bleach spray and, like, a Tyvek suit. And so, honestly, I think, you know, the description of what to do that I’m talking about, that really should go to the owner of the Airbnb.

If I were in that position, I would not want to stay in the place that you’re describing. I mean, if I had no other choice, then there are these options.

That’s perfectly reasonable medical and legal reason to say, hey, we’re not staying here. I’m not staying in a place that’s befouled by mouse poop.

Now, if you’re traveling, partner, that is, your husband, husband says, look, what are you worried about? Don’t be squeamish. It’s just a little bit of mouse poop. You can say, look, talk to German worm. Go back and listen to episode 104.

In fact, keep this episode on speed dial. Right, Chris? So you can play this for your partner and say, no, this is something we actually do take seriously.

We should not ignore these mouse droppings.

WORM
00:27:11.650 – 00:27:42.700
Also, something I would encourage you to do is read reviews before you book a place.

My wife and I just got back from six weeks in southern Italy, and we stayed probably in about 10 Airbnbs, but we were very meticulous about reading reviews for each one. And I’m put off by places that have no reviews and, of course, places that have bad reviews or people who comment about dirt.

So if a place has 200 reviews and a bunch of people say it’s clean, that’s a good thing. So that’s one very nice thing about the whole Airbnb rental system, 100%.

GERM
00:27:42.700 – 00:27:47.690
And again, we like these Airbnb. And what’s that other one called?

WORM
00:27:47.840 – 00:27:48.880
Called vrbo.

GERM
00:27:48.960 – 00:27:57.840
Vrbo. All that stuff. I think it’s great. But please don’t put yourself at risk of catching these infections.

That may mean making a change, and it may be worth it.

WORM
00:27:59.360 – 00:28:14.500
Related question, Paul coming to you.

Suppose someone takes a road trip across the US Maybe across the southwest of the US and then they come back and they find that damn, some mice have made a nest in their engine, under their hood, in their car. What should they do?

GERM
00:28:14.820 – 00:30:29.260
You should deal with it. I mean this, this, it’s very similar to what we discussed before, but it’s worse.

In the case of a home, a closet, a living room, you know, you can see what’s going on. In the case of a car, we have these incredibly complicated airways air ducting systems. It’s hard to clean that out with a bleach spray.

You may need to have professional remediation of your car. And I’m sorry to say that, but I really do think it’s true.

Because if you have a long standing infestation, a whole colony of, let’s say mice or rats, by the way, they love your car because it’s warm and they can hang out there, it’s dry, like you made a great home for them. And they’re going to love to get up in your business in the grills and make a nest.

And then when you turn on the climate control system in your car, you’re blasting yourself with dry air. It’s like this perfect bioweapon that you’ve just created for yourself. I’ll give you a funny story. A couple years ago I bought a new car.

It’s an electric Kia. Love the Kia. It was great. And my daughter borrowed it to go to the grocery store when she was driving home for the grocery store.

And we have this on video. This is a true thing.

A little rat popped up out of the vent on the windshield and started like looking at her, basically holding on for dear life to the, to the windshield wipers. Like a scene out of Ratatouille. Poor rat. And she and her boyfriend screamed and it then dove down again into the, into the air intake.

So that was an example where I knew new, it was a brand new car, they just taken it out to the grocery store. So this is like a Safeway rat. Maybe it was like a well friend rat. What was it doing up in our car? I don’t know.

So I didn’t have any worries about this because I was able to get rid of the rat by tempting Matt with some poison, I’m sorry to say, and getting rid of him. So I knew that I was not at risk. There hadn’t been a colony, it was just a one time rat in Mikia. But that is uncommon.

So in general, yes, if you find that you’ve got a nest up in there, first of all, they could chew on the wires. You could have an electrical short. You need to see a mechanic for that right reason.

Second of all, tell them I need a professional fumigation of this car and it does involve using bleach solutions not only on the surface of the engine, but again, replace that air filter and get those ducts cleaned out. If you want to learn more about this you can find just on a simple web search. Look for CDC recommendations for cleaning up hantavirus.

You’ll see information about how to clean up a home and a car.

WORM
00:30:29.740 – 00:30:38.320
So what I’m hearing is out of a good place in your heart. Don’t plan for a long term coexistence. Don’t offer to have your car be a home for the rodents long term.

GERM
00:30:38.640 – 00:31:38.750
If they would just build cars with rat guards on the bottom, this would be easier. But of course that makes them heavier and rattlier. Rattlier? So anyway, that’s not happening. Unfortunately this is a risk.

It does happen, especially if you park outside periodically. Pop the hood. Even if you’re not a mechanic, pop the hood if you see a bunch of rat droppings in there. It’s time to clean up your car. Everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us here on episode 104 of Germ and Worm. As always, we welcome your questions on travel, health. Send them along or tips for success.

Funny stories we’d love to hear from you germandworm@gmail.com or find us online germandworm.com where you can binge previous episodes to your heart’s content. And please join us next week for episode 105 Ebola. A big bowl of Bad. If you’ve enjoyed the this episode, please subscribe.

Rate us favorably on your device and spread the word with friends, family and on the socials. Those are free ways to support this podcast. I’m Jerm.

WORM
00:31:38.750 – 00:31:41.550
I’m Worm. It’s a big planet. See it in good health and we’ll.

GERM
00:31:41.550 – 00:32:01.480
See you next time.

This podcast is designed to inform, inspire and entertain, but it does not establish a doctor patient relationship and so it should not replace your conversation with a qualified healthcare professional. Please see one before your next adventure.

The opinions in this podcast are Dr. Sanford’s and Dr. Pottinger’s alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the University of Washington or UW Medicine.