Wendy Zuckerman

How is it spreading?

And how worried do we need to be here?

Could this be the next pandemic?

When it comes to Hunter virus, there's a lot of people saying... We're not doing it again.

And then there's science.

Science versus Hunter virus is coming up just after the break.

Welcome back.

Today we're talking all about Hantavirus.

And this is the first time a lot of us have even heard of this virus.

So we're going to break down exactly what it is, starting with what happens if you get infected.

Because on the cruise ship, the three passengers died within just a few days of their symptoms starting, which is very scary.

So we wanted to know how things can escalate so quickly.

And for this, we called out Professor Michelle Harkins.

And she's treated dozens of Hantavirus patients in the ICU.

And she told us that there are a couple of dozen different types of hunter viruses that can infect humans.

The one that Michelle generally sees in New Mexico is called the Sinombre virus.

And it is a lot like the version that popped up on the cruise ship.

Yeah, they're in the same family.

We can call them relatives.

So if you get infected with hantavirus and you have all these viral particles in your body, they tend to attack and go after this specific type of cell.