Dr Scott Walkin

Good morning to you, David.

You know, I think you put your finger on it there, David.

You know, we don't even know at this point if it is hantavirus.

So people, of course, unfortunately, are admitted to hospital all the time with various conditions.

And hantavirus, while it's a possibility, it's also possible that it's something completely unrelated.

So I think because we're early in this situation, we just need more information to know what's going on with that.

Yes.

So like very many viruses, the initial symptoms tend to be flu-like symptoms.

So fevers, aches and pains, just feeling terrible, out of energy.

So you're right.

But if anybody...

It demonstrates those symptoms.

The public health authorities will be giving careful attention as to who they're in contact with, what the level of contact was, whether hantavirus is a realistic possibility, and then they move on to lab testing to confirm whether there's hantavirus.

So this is not highly transmissible technology.

thankfully, but because they were living in or staying in very close quarters, the risk of transmission in those particular circumstances would, of course, be higher than it would be ashore in day-to-day life.

So I think because of that, it's particularly important to do a careful risk assessment.

And of course, that's what's happening at the moment.

You know, they're collecting the information from the passengers aboard as we speak.

so because i mean of course it's correct to say that each sovereign nation uh will uh determine exactly how they will respond uh but there's very close coordination across europe and and indeed globally about managing these situations so through the european early warning response system uh these alerts go out and a plan about how to manage them so yes the ireland will have

sovereignty about exactly how they do it, but it's done in very close collaboration with advice from the European Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.