90-Second Read: As cruise passengers return to US, doctor says risk of Hantavirus is low

Example video title will go here for this video Example video title will go here for this video DENVER, After a deadly Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship, passengers are on their way home. With the 17 Americans on that cruise ship now on their way to Nebraska, many people are worried about the potential for Hantavirus to spread. Hantavirus needs prolonged intimate contact to spread, helping keep cases down. The way it's spread is typically not very contagious between humans, and that's one thing that we're seeing is very interesting with this new case that's cropped up on the cruise ship. It's probably the only kind of documented case where we've seen, it's spread between person to person, and it's because it's a specific type of Hantavirus known as.

Of those cases, 45 were fatal, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Ponce said the cruise ship cases are being watched closely. Ponce said Colorado still has policies in place to help report and monitor Hantavirus, but those federal changes could still be felt. It is being tracked very closely by numerous agencies across the country and across the world," said Dr. Joseph Ponce, AdventHealth Porter emergency medicine physician.

Hantavirus is primarily carried by rodents like rats and mice. People usually get it after breathing in dust contaminated with saliva or urine of infected rodents. The CDC, the World Health Organization, a lot of people are paying really close attention to this. The good news is that because of this kind of adherence to these policies, it provides a degree of independent surveillance capacity that Colorado has in place, especially mandatory reporting for Hantavirus. Ponce said that weakens access to the WHO's data sharing, a kind of global early warning system.

However, it is still a consistent threat in the United States. So for a virus like this that originates in international waters such as the South American ports, you know, losing these channels of communication and early monitoring do delay our awareness of new cases and statistics. Colorado is adhering to a lot of the rules of thumb that are outlined by the World Health Organization.