90-Second Read: Don’t freak out about Hantavirus

While it is possible that the virus was spread from human to human on the ship, the World Health Organization stresses that the worldwide risk level from Hantavirus is low. Bristow spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about the outbreak and what we know about this specific strain of Hantavirus, as well as the US response so far. Hantavirus is actually a family of about 40 different kinds of viruses, and they're primarily spread by coming into contact with the infected feces, urine, or saliva of rodents who are carriers. Eighteen Americans are now back in the United States after being stuck on a cruise ship that was stricken with an outbreak of Hantavirus. Since then, three passengers have died from Hantavirus, which is typically spread by rodents.

The passengers that were on board the cruise ship that got hit by Hantavirus got off the ship. You're just getting a lot more information about it because it is such a strange situation for Hantavirus to be on a cruise ship. I just want to be very clear, my concern about this Hantavirus outbreak becoming pandemic-level or even spreading, really, to anyone outside of the cruise line is incredibly low. Just to be clear, not all rodents are carriers of Hantavirus. It depends on what kind of Hantavirus it is, but the case fatality tends to be up to 40 percent.

That hasn't stopped people from worrying, but Laurel Bristow, an infectious disease researcher at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health and host of the weekly radio show and podcast Health Wanted, says this viral outbreak is very far from warranting a pandemic-level freakout. What's unique about this is that the Andes species of Hantavirus is the only one that we have seen be able to transmit person to person. If you want to find a silver lining for it, it's that this is going to allow us to learn a lot more about how this particular type of Hantavirus spreads, which will help us in the future. It seems pretty clear if you look online that there is a lot of misinformation spreading about Hantavirus. An infectious disease researcher.

How did the Andes version of Hantavirus get on this cruise ship? One of the problems with the Hantavirus outbreak is that the symptoms overlap a lot with influenza, so it's not going to be the first thing that you suspect. They're going to make a decision in conjunction with their care team about where they're going to spend the 42-day quarantine that is being recommended. In these cases, you really have to think about what your actual exposure risk is with something like this and then person-to-person spread. Some of it is people claiming, and I've seen a lot of this, people claiming to be public health experts or doctors and saying, "It's time to panic.