Minnesotan being monitored after hantavirus exposure

Public health authorities are monitoring someone in Minnesota who may have been briefly exposed during overseas travel to a cruise ship traveler who tested positive for hantavirus.

The person with the potential exposure has not shown any symptoms or tested positive, but the Minnesota Department of Health is conducting surveillance and notifying the public out of caution.

"We want to emphasize that the risk to the public remains very low," the department wrote in a statement on Tuesday.

A hantavirus outbreak emerged in May on the MV Hondius cruise ship during a South American trip. Global health authorities have reported 11 confirmed or suspected cases among travelers of infection with the Andes strain of the virus, the only kind known to spread from person to person.

Three infected people have died from the infection, which attacks the lungs.

American passengers at risk of exposure were taken for monitoring to biocontainment units in Omaha, Neb., and Atlanta, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

None so far has shown symptoms of the severe and highly infectious disease, which is commonly spread by rodents. People also can be infected by touching infected rodents or surfaces. Person-to-person infection usually requires close, prolonged contact with someone showing symptoms.

The state health department reported that the potentially exposed person in Minnesota has been in frequent contact and cooperative.

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