Prof Jonathan Ball

And I think the most important thing

is to be vigilant in monitoring the health of the passengers to ensure that if anybody does start to show symptoms that could be hantavirus infection, that those individuals are isolated from the rest of the ship's passenger and crew as quickly as possible.

Yeah, there may well be more cases.

We know that the incubation period for the hantavirus can be up to several weeks and so that gives the virus a long window during which it can replicate but also potentially transmit.

So I think it's really important that the ship is allowed to dock somewhere and for the people on board to be allowed off the vessel to be tested and those who are infected to get the care and treatment that they require.

There are no specific treatments for hantavirus infection that have been licensed, but there are treatments that can be used on a compassionate basis and there's some evidence that they may help relieve some of the symptoms and help prevent serious symptoms from developing.

One such treatment is called ribavirin, which is a fairly broad-acting antiviral, so it directly inhibits the replication, the growth of the virus.

But as I say, if it is the Andes virus or a new world hantavirus and the normal symptoms or serious symptoms develop, these viruses we know cause difficulty with breathing.

Then it's the normal things that we do for patients who are struggling for breath, and that would be to give them additional oxygen.

And if that doesn't work, they may what we call intubate the patient.

So that means putting a pipe inside their airway to try and help with that breathing.

And they can be mechanically ventilated if the worst plays out.

Yes, I wouldn't like to comment on cruise ships, whether or not we should go on them.

In my personal opinion is I would really like to go on a cruise ship.

you know we do see a lot of outbreaks of different viral infections and in cruise ships and a lot of the problem is because you are living cheek by jaw with other people and so if you get an infectious agent introduced into that population it does help the spread and we all know that there are lots of norovirus outbreaks on on cruise ships for example and we can all think back to covid and the cruise ship that got stranded because it had a covid outbreak so

other than avoiding cruise ships which I wouldn't advocate and I wouldn't not advocate.

The main thing is to avoid or limit your exposure to rodents and the excretia.

We know that people who have a lot of exposure to rats through their work or because they keep pet rats for example means that you've got an increased risk of exposure to the virus.

Yeah, clearly authorities, wherever they dock, they need to be reassured that there's no risk of either the virus being imported into the place that they dock or, if there are rodents present on the ship, that those rodents don't get out onto the land.

But the reality is there are ways that we can limit the risk of rodents, if they are on the ship, from escaping, but also equally get patients and passengers off