90-Second Read: Hantavirus crisis: WHO recommendations

A deadly Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship has spurred global concern over the potential spread of the virus among and from ship evacuees as they head back to their home countries. Here are the World Health Organization's main recommendations to limit the transmission risks and to better protect those exposed to the rare virus, which usually spreads among rodents, and for which there is no vaccine or treatment. Van Kerkhove said that corresponded to the longest likely incubation period of Andes virus, the only Hantavirus strain known to spread between humans, at the heart of the outbreak.

The WHO has urged countries to strengthen health coordination, contact tracing and surveillance of suspected cases. Other people who had left the ship before the outbreak was understood, as well as people they come in contact with could also be considered high-risk contacts. But in the United States, Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the 17 returning American passengers would not necessarily be quarantined.

There is as of now no licensed treatment for Hantavirus, which can have a fatality rate up to 50%. For the management of suspected or confirmed cases, the WHO recommends implementing additional measures, with particular precautions taken in the case of any procedures likely to generate aerosols. The United Nations health agency is recommending that all of them be quarantined and kept in isolation for six weeks.