A recent hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship generated significant media attention, yet one critical question was absent from virtually every report, says ISSA senior director Dr Gavin Macgregor-Skinner. And the omission alarmed him.
The outbreak aboard expedition cruise ship MV Hondius, which was linked to the Andes strain of hantavirus and prompted an international public health response, drew headlines as passengers and crew were quarantined and health authorities monitored potential exposure pathways. The vessel later underwent additional decontamination and inspection procedures before returning to operation. Yet despite widespread reporting on infections, fatalities and containment measures, little attention was given to the people responsible for cleaning and remediation.
“There’s one big thing that’s missing out of all the stories that we’ve been reading. Who’s doing the cleaning? Are they trained to clean up infectious disease materials and biohazards? Do they have the correct PPE to protect their safety?”
Passengers were moved from ship to bus to aeroplane and on to hospitals or home quarantine, but at no point did public conversation address how contaminated spaces were handled.
“There’s been no mention of how we clean up biohazard materials, urine, vomit, diarrhoea, contaminated surfaces, indoor air,” Macgregor-Skinner says. “We’ve had no mention of who cleaned the ship, who cleans the buses, who cleans the plane, who cleans the hospital rooms and who cleans the homes.”
For Macgregor-Skinner, the outbreak revealed how invisible cleaning and remediation work can become during public health events despite its central role in reducing exposure risk and restoring confidence in built environments.
A business opportunity hiding in plain sight
Macgregor-Skinner, who leads ISSA’s Making Safer Choices program and works in exposure science, argues that this silence represents a significant missed opportunity.
“If no one’s going to talk about cleaning in an infectious disease outbreak like hantavirus on a cruise ship, which got so much media attention, then it’s up to ISSA and our members to create awareness,” he says. “I think right now we have an enormous business opportunity across the value chain of the cleaning industry, if they can do this one thing.”
That one thing is closing what he calls the ‘knowing-doing gap’, ensuring manufacturers, distributors, facility managers and cleaning companies can all, not just claim, but demonstrate they know how to safely manage biohazardous materials.
The cruise ship response also highlighted the scale of coordination required once a biohazard event extends beyond a single site. Exposure management moved across transport systems, accommodation, healthcare settings and private residences, placing cleaning and remediation capability at the centre of continuity and public health protection.
Every worker, on every job, should be asking two questions: ‘am I wearing the correct PPE to protect my eyes, nose and mouth?’ and ‘am I using the correct cleaning equipment, tools and products?’
Why the industry must act now
The urgency intensifies with the FIFA World Cup, with 104 games across six weeks drawing an estimated 10 million travellers to mass gathering venues.
“Cleaning industry workers, people across the value chain for the cleaning industry, will not be taking vacations this summer,” Macgregor-Skinner notes. “It’s going to be too busy.” The professional standard, he emphasises, requires more than awareness. “We are seeing communities still leaving a lot to chance, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. The professional cleaning industry does not do that. We manage air, water and surfaces in the built environment.”
His call to the sector is direct: “Can you safely clean up vomit, diarrhoea, urine, blood? If you say ‘yes’, then work with ISSA, so we can tell that story and show that we know what to do before the emergency becomes, and quickly turns into, a disaster,” he asks.
Portions of this article first appeared in CMM.
