Local health officials say the current risk for a hantavirus outbreak remains extremely low.
Windsor Regional Hospital officials stated during Thursday's board meeting that while global health officials are monitoring the rare hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship, there have been no local planning discussions.
Dr. Wassim Saad, Windsor Regional's chief of staff, stated that at this time there are no internal conversations happening regarding the virus.
Five of eight cases were confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) from individuals on the MV Hondius cruise ship. Three people have died from the outbreak of hantavirus, which usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings.
Saad says the virus is not behaving like a widespread respiratory threat.
"It really has been isolated pockets of infection that are tied to very close contact, it's really a zoonotic infection that's transmitted through rodents."
He says the risk in person-to-person transmission is very low.
"Having said that it does present as a respiratory illness, so from a hospital's perspective any time a patient is admitted with respiratory symptoms, we take respiratory precautions because we don't know if it's influenza or COVID, or it could even be hantavirus."
He says the message for Windsor-Essex residents is to not panic.
"From a community perspective extremely low risk, no real significant person-to-person transmission, no big alarm bells being raised at all at this time. And from a hospital perspective we're always prepared for any respiratory-borne illnesses as we always take precautions when anyone is admitted with those types of symptoms."
Meanwhile, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) states they are aware of recent reports of hantavirus cases internationally, but says the current risk to Windsor-Essex County residents remains very low.
The health unit states they are in regular contact with federal and provincial partners to monitor the situation closely.
Unlike other viruses, such as influenza or COVID-19, hantavirus does not spread easily from one person to another.
-with files from CTV Windsor's Travis Fortnum