Hantavirus Concerns: Assessing Risk

Dr. David Banach shares his infectious diseases expertise on Dr. Anthony Alessi's podcast

two-portrait collage, Drs. David Banach and Anthony Alessi

Dr. David Banach (left), UConn Health infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist, joins Dr. Anthony Alessi on his "Healthy Rounds" podcast at UConn Health. (Photos by Tina Encarnacion)

Dr. Anthony Alessi's "Healthy Rounds" radio program is now a UConn Health podcast. (Tina Encarnacion/ UConn Health photo)

An outbreak of an uncommon but not unheard-of illness is responsible for the deaths of at least three people who were on an international cruise ship. With the rest of the passengers and crew under observation in their home countries - including 18 Americans who went to a quarantine facility at the University of Nebraska - how worried do we need to be about hantavirus?

Dr. David Banach, UConn Health infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist, joins Dr. Anthony Alessi to explain what we're dealing with, the public health implications, and how, unlike COVID, the medical community at least has some history with this virus.

It doesn't spread in the same way that COVID does, in the sense that there's no established sort of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic spread. — Dr. David Banach

Listen now:

Find the transcript on Podbean.

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