90-Second Read: Virginia health officials monitor cruise ship passengers for deadly Hantavirus symptoms

Health officials from four continents are attempting to track down and monitor passengers who left the ship before the outbreak, which led to the deaths of three passengers. The Associated Press reported that those health officials are now scrambling to trace other passengers, who may have come into contact with those infected. SEE ALSO | Virginia resident returns home from Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Virginia State Health Commissioner Dr. Virginia health officials said Friday they are closely monitoring the health of one resident of the commonwealth, who has returned home, and fewer than five oth ARLINGTON, Va. The Virginian was a passenger aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship now at the center of an international public-health response.

Milton said that the Hantavirus, specifically the Andes strain identified in this case, is the only strain that can be transmitted from person to person and is deadly in roughly 25% of cases. I don't think there's a COVD-like outbreak potential when you're thinking about Hantavirus," said Dr. We're monitoring really closely, that way we're able to really wrap the public health apparatus around them and do the work that we know how to do and that we're trained to do, and that's to keep the public safe. We should be alert," Professor Donald Milton, an internationally recognized expert on the airborne transmission of pulmonary diseases, told 7News Friday. The 2002-2004 SARS epidemic claimed more than 700 lives worldwide, but there were no deaths linked to SARS within the United.

B Cameron Webb isn't identifying the ship's passengers who are either home now or on their way home. SEE ALSO | CDC activates Level 3 Hantavirus response: What it means "It looks to me like this will be something that can be contained and, if we're proactive, we will see less spread than we saw, a lot less spread than we saw with SARS and nothing like COVID. Because this virus does carry with it the risk of person-to-person transmission and can be extremely deadly, we do want to be extra cautious. I think the key for us is making sure we're in touch early and often," Webb said, referencing Virginia's coordinated response to the returning passengers. The state is even refusing to say what county they're in.

The COVID-19 pandemic, by comparison, contributed to more than 1.2 million deaths just within the United States. We want to make sure that those that have a known, verified exposure do in fact quarantine. Even if someone isn't symptomatic, Milton said, they should wear surgical masks out of an abundance of caution. Amira Roess, an infectious disease expert and professor at George Mason University, who worked as an outbreak investigator for the CDC.