Professor May Ruchil

But it's early days and we're still learning a lot about what is actually happening.

There's a lot of unknowns.

We actually don't know

if the people who got sick from Hantavirus, as I understand, there's been two confirmed cases, but the others, we don't know if they've actually contracted Hantavirus or they've had other conditions that they've died from.

And the early risk assessment that it's suggesting, because the human to human transmission is not as quick or rapid as COVID or influenza, and what we also know that not many other people on the cruise ship are experiencing those symptoms, the risk of broader spread right now

is low.

That doesn't mean that it can't change over time.

And this is where a coordinated response under the new international health regulations becomes really useful and important.

But at the moment, from what information we have, there's lots of unknowns.

We're still learning about what's happening.

What are the different causes?

What type of virus?

Because as I said at the start, Hantavirus is a group of viruses.

We're still learning what type of virus it might be, where it originated.

Did people get infected before boarding the ship or on the ship?

As I understand, the cruise ship also has stopped at many places where they've had exposures to wildlife as well.

So there's a lot of unknowns and we really need to understand what's happening.

So understandably, people are very...

Curious.

People are concerned.