CDC ZOHU Call March 4, 2026

Hi, everyone, thanks for joining. We'll begin in a moment. Good afternoon. I'm Keisha Bohannon. I work at CDC's One Health office and that is in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On behalf of our office, welcome to the March 4th ZOHU call. Next slide, please. Although the content of this webinar is directed to veterinarians, physicians, epidemiologists, and related public health professionals in federal, state, and local positions, the CDC has no control over who participates. Therefore, please exercise discretion on sensitive content and material as confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. Today's webinar is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect now. Links to resources from each presentation are available on our website at www.cdc.gov slash 1-health slash php slash trainings dash events slash March dash 2026 dash ZOHU call dot html. Next slide, please. Today's presentations will address one or more of the following five objectives. Identify an implication for human, animal, and environmental health. Identify a One Health approach strategy for prevention of public health threats. Identify a One Health approach strategy for the detection of public health threats. Identify a One Health approach strategy for responding to public health threats. And list two ways to improve collaborative practice across the public health care team. Next slide, please. In compliance with continuing education requirements, all planners and presenters must disclose all financial relationships in any amount with ineligible companies over the previous 24 months, as well as any use of unlabeled products or products under investigational use. CDC, our planners and presenters, wish to disclose they have no financial relationships with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, reselling, or distributing health care products used by or on patients. Content will not include any discussion of the unlabeled use of a product or product under investigational use. And CDC did not accept commercial or in-kind support for this activity. Next slide. Instructions for receiving free continuing education are available at cdc.gov slash one dash health slash php slash zohu slash index dot html. To receive free CE for today's webcast, sign in to create or create an account at cdc dot sorry train dot org by April 6, 2026. And the course access access code is going to be ZOHU webcast. And that is case sensitive. So it's going to be capital ZOHU and webcast. A captioned video of today's webinar will be posted on our March call page within 30 days. And free CE for the web on demand video will be available for the next two years until April 7, 2028. Next slide. Before we begin today's presentation, CDC's One Health Office Director, Casey Barton Behravesh, will share some news and updates. Greetings, everybody. And thank you for joining us for our March ZOHU call. We're happy you're here today. So before we start the presentations, we want to share a few updates and resources with you. And of course, you can find links to these resources in today's ZOHU call email newsletter. If you're not subscribed to the newsletter, you can sign up using the link on our main ZOHU call web page. So moving forward, you'll get these updates regularly. First, CDC is working closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, and many other governmental and non-governmental partners to respond to an outbreak of new world screwworm that can impact livestock, companion animals, wildlife, and people in Central America and Mexico. You can find the latest updates on USDA and CDC's website and on the whole of government website screwworm.gov. Next slide. In today's newsletter, we highlight several recent publications, including one detailing how routine surveillance data was used to assess dengue virus transmission risk in travelers returning to the United States, and another highlighting a fatal Ehrlichia muris euclarensis infection in a liver transplant recipient from Minnesota, and one highlighting dermacenter occidentalis ticks and links to rickettsialini infections in California. Next slide. The newsletter also highlights recent announcements and resources, including the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service that launched a regenerative pilot program to help farmers adopt sustainable practices, the NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation Program, which is a free confidential service that investigates potential chemical, physical, biological, or psychosocial hazards in U.S. workplaces. Also, CDC and FDA's Antimicrobial Resistance Isolate Bank helps researchers develop new drugs and tests to fight superbugs, and finally, the Antimicrobial Resistance Investment Map is available, and it showcases CDC's extramural activities to combat antimicrobial resistance with investments in laboratory and epidemiological expertise in public health innovation. Next slide. Finally, we've shared several new and ongoing outbreak investigations, including a salmonella outbreak linked to supergreen supplement powders and another salmonella outbreak linked to raw oysters, an extensively drug-resistant salmonella outbreak linked to moringa powder capsules, and an infant botulism outbreak linked to infant formula. You can also visit CDC's Healthy Pets, Healthy People website for a selected list of ongoing and past U.S. outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, and linked from today's newsletter, you can find details about additional ongoing outbreaks in the United States. Please continue to send us presenter and topic suggestions for future ZOHU calls, as well as any news from your organization that you'd like for us to share. Just email it to zohucall at cdc.gov, and we encourage you to the ZOHU call website link with your colleagues from public health, agriculture, wildlife, plant, environment, and any other relevant fields and sectors, so we can let them know about the live and recorded webinars and free continuing education that the ZOHU call offers. So, thank you. Next slide, and back over to you, Keisha. Thanks, Casey. You can submit questions at any time using Teams Q&A feature. Please include the topic or presenter's name. The Q&A session will follow the final presentation, if time permits. You may also email questions to today's presenters. We've included their email addresses on the slide and in today's email newsletter. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Thank you. Our presentation, our first presentation, Ecology of Hantavirus in Wildlife, will be shared by Dr. Luis Escobar and Mr. Panwari Pansy. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you. This is Luis Escobar, and I'm going to present with my stellar student, Nine Pansy. Next, please. So, what we do is we study wildlife diseases, and here in this slide, you can see an overview of the Hanta virus system. From left to right, what we know about Hanta is that if we have climatic variation, for example, a mini-oscillation, where we have more precipitation, we're going to have more primary productivity, more food for rodents. So, in the middle, you see that with more food and resources for rodents, we have more density of rodents, more prevalence of Hanta virus circulation. And then, on the right, more likelihood of spillover, which is the transmission from a wildlife species to humans. Next, please. So, we know that Hanta virus has these coarse scale signals, and that is some of the incidents we see can be explained by climate, for example. In this global map, I'm showing the distribution of Hanta virus lineages. This is a paper 12 years old, and we are trying to update this, so there are more lineages. But here, you can see that globally, we have distribution of Hanta viruses in the Americas, in Europe, and Asia. And also, you can see that there are different colors of the dots, which means that there are different lineages, and that lineages in Europe and Asia cause disease in humans that is expressed as damage in the kidney, so a renal syndrome. But in the Americas, we have something different. We have damage in the lungs, so it's respiratory syndrome. So, again, we see these coarse signals that suggest that the virus has some biogeographic or ecological patterns. Next, please. So, when we try to apply basic ecological theories, that's what we're trying to do in my laboratory, one of the core theories in ecology is the ecological niche. And here on the left, what you can see is that organisms respond, have this Gaussian or normal response to environments where we have minimum and maximum values of salinity or temperature or pH or any other environmental condition. And organisms are going to have a response in terms of fitness, where they may be unable to survive outside this range, or they may be able to perform very well in the optimal conditions, showing the maximum fitness. On the right, I'm showing that if we have more than one environmental condition, temperature and precipitation, for example, the expression of this fitness is going to be a kind of ellipsoid, where we have the most optimal conditions in the center of this ellipsoid, with a decrease of fitness towards the ages and maybe non-survival outside this range of conditions. Next, please. So, taking these ideas, we're measuring the preferred niche conditions, the marginal niche and the conditions outside the niche for the rodents. And we want to measure how, first, if it's true that rodents have this higher fitness in the center of their ecological niche. And also, we want to measure what's going on with the transmission of hantavirus. Next, please. So, we are testing three hypotheses. The null hypothesis on the top is that transmission in rodents happens anywhere across the niche, so we cannot predict based on the environmental conditions. Alternatively, we have two other hypotheses. One is that we have more transmission in the more optimal environment, in the center of the niche, or that we have more transmission in the edges of the niche, where environmental conditions are suboptimal for the rodents. And we want to evaluate transmission in terms of prevalence, for example. Next, please. So, using data of rodents and hantavirus seroprevalence across the continental U.S., we tried to reconstruct, as best as possible, based on climate, the niche of rodents. In this case, this is a figure made by Nine, my student, who, based on climatic conditions like temperature and precipitation, was able to reconstruct the fundamental niche of Peromyscus maniculatus, one of the main reservoirs of hantavirus. Then, we tried to identify the center, or optimal conditions, that is the black diamond. And we measured seroprevalence across that niche that are the red circles. So, on the right, you can see that closer to the niche that is in the left side of this plot, we have higher seroprevalence, which decreases towards the edges of the niche. Next, please. So, basically, this data is suggesting that we have higher transmission close to the optimal environments for the rodent, where environmental conditions for the rodent are better. So, it's more or less that this alternative hypothesis is being supported. And we saw this for hantavirus in the U.S. and also hantavirus in Brazil. Next, please. So, but this is for the rodent. And the next question was, what's going on for transmission from rodents to humans? So, we tried to address this same hypothesis, testing if, in the top, transmission from wildlife to humans is random, and we cannot predict it across the niche of the host, or if we have more spillover in the most optimal conditions of the rodent, or if we have more spillover in the edges, here in the bottom right, the less optimal conditions for the rodents maybe are showing more spillover to humans. Next, please. And what we found with data for hantavirus transmission in humans in Chile is that it seems that hantavirus is not, from rodents to humans, is not happening randomly, and instead is happening close to the center of the niche of the reservoirs or the wildlife species that carry the virus. In this case, we were testing six species of rodents in a work with my colleagues, Francisca Storga from Universidad Andres Bello and Daniela Po from Universidad La Frontera. Next, please. So, for spillover transmission from rodents to humans, again, it seems that it's not random, and we have more spillover transmission in the most optimal environments for the rodents. Next, please. So, our vision now is, for the collection of samples, is to understand how these ecological conditions are manifested in the geography. So, remember that I was explaining that we have more transmission in the optimal environments for the rodents, and less transmission in the less optimal environments for the rodents. So, what we see is that, for example, across the Andes, there is a threshold of elevation above which we find the rodents, but they are not infected. So, we cannot find hantavirus. We are not sure why, and that's why we are trying to account for the environmental gradients when we are assessing for spillover risk and prevalences in wildlife. Next, please. So, something that we are doing in the U.S. here, on the left, is that we are trying to understand the range of the rodent, Peromyscus maniculatus, in this case, that is the orange map, and we have data of samples of blood with serology of hantavirus across these triangles. In the bottom, in B, you can see the same, but in environmental dimensions, so temperature and precipitation in this example, where in orange, the dots show the range of the rodents, the environments that the rodent is using, and the triangles show sites or environmental conditions from which we have serological data for hantavirus. We are repeating this in the southern hemisphere. In this case, on the right, C shows the range of Oligorhizomys longicaudatus that is the main host of hantavirus in Chile, and we, in D, are trying to take samples also across the niche of the species, because we want to corroborate that if it's true what we see in the U.S., of course, also in South America. Next, please. So, but all of these are very coarse scale assessments, and we found recently that when we add more details, more local level information, we may see some changes in the patterns. Next, please. For instance, a model we made of hantavirus transmission in Brazil shows that when we add socioeconomic variables on the left, the risk of transmission gets better and more refined compared with models that only account for environmental conditions on the right. So, we lost some detail in estimating where spillover can occur. Next, please. Therefore, something that we're trying to do now is to do studies more at the local level. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Luis Escobar. He is my PhD advisor, and my name is Pamelit Pansy. Now, I'm going to narrow down to the local scale about the ecology of hantavirus. Next, please. So, is there any additional information on the ecology of hantavirus? So, I will say yes. Next, please. So, we have a big data from NEON. It stands for National Ecological Observatory Network. So, this big data has been collecting more than a decade, since 2014. So, they collect the rodents, like capture, recapture, and also measure their morphology, like the body mass, the length, the size, and also their taste, their antibody, positive or negative of the hantavirus. So, the result indicated that the highest seroprevalence in the U.S. is three states. First, Colorado. Second, Texas. And the last one, Virginia. However, from this pattern, you can see there is no pattern. It's very random. In Virginia, have very density, have a high seroprevalence in Virginia, but surrounding them is very raw. And also in Colorado and Texas. So, it's random. So, my question is, in the local scale, do they have some pattern, like a clumped pattern, or some kind of…they stick together or not? Next, please. And next, please. Okay. So, we have 47 terrestrial sites. Each site have a different land use, land cover, and also they have rodent trap sampling. Next, please. So, they place the plot 100 square meters, and each 10 meters, they put Sherman traps to capture rodents and also test their antibody. Next, please. So, for the overall of the 47 terrestrial sites, they have 208 rodent plot sampling. So, the question is, is the local scale random pattern observed in the seropositive? Next, please. Next, please. Next, please. So, from 208 rodent plots, the data we analyzed from 2014 to 2019 during the blood testing was collected. Next, please. But just only six plots. So, three percent can be analyzed for the spatial analysis. So, the reason is why we just have only six plots. So, I use the libliK function. So, this function allows us to analyze the spatial pattern analysis. You have to have more than 15 data points. So, the rest of the plots have less data points. So, it's very scarce, the scale of the data. Next, please. And from six plots, from six plots, we have just only one plot. It's significant in the spatial pattern. So, it's a compact pattern. So, from the 100 square meters, they have a relative competency of the seropositive in a certain area. So, in ecology, which means there's something, there's a factor that influences the pattern to be like this, but we don't know yet. Next, please. And this site is located in the Bullish Mountain, Virginia. Next, please. And also have a highest capture event, which means how many times that you individual of the rodent. So, 205 events, and also have a high positive sample, 35 positive. Next, please. So, when we move to the seasonal, environmental, and host driver, here is we pull the data from all the rodent species, and the data is indicated that seroprevalence of the Hantau rodent is going to peak during spring and fall. Next, please. And also, I separate, I select the primary reservoir. First is Peromyscus maniculatus, you might know as deer mice. And the second, Peromyscus lycopas, this is the white-footed mice. So, the peak season is the same, but different time periods. So, in spring, Peromyscus maniculatus is peak around March to May, and in fall, September to November. And Peromyscus lycopas, spring peak is from March to April, and fall peak is from September to October. Next, please. And when we calculate just linear regression, the environmental driver, if the temperature is high, the seroprevalence is going to be high. And also, if have a low precipitation, like low snow, low rain, the seroprevalence is going to be high as well. Next, please. So, we also analyze from the demographic. So, the high risk mode is going to be heavier, dominant, adult male, which means the adult male, according from our literature, adult male have aggressive behavior and also can horizontally transmit to another individual. So, it's going to have a high chance to try to spill over the antivirus to another individual. Next, please. Yeah, next, please. So, according to my talk, I use just only linear relationship, but in reality, the climate is not going to be linear, like exactly the same time. So, for example, if the temperature is going to be high now, the seroprevalence is going to be high now as well. So, there's something delay. It could be a delay in how climate sensitivity affects your biological response. Next, please. Next, please. So, yes, when we do the lack of the time of the climate sensitivity and biological response. So, here, when the high temperature during the September to November, the seroprevalence is going to be peak in the spring. So, it's like six or five months before if the temperature is high. Next, please. Next. Next, yes. So, the question has come to my mind. It's like short time of the snow period. Next, please. And also, I calculate with the NDVI. Some of you might not know what this stands for. So, NDVI is normalized different vegetation index. So, this index indicated that if the value is high, that area is going to be green or have a dense of the canopy cover and also food availability. And also, if the value of the NDVI is low, that area is going to be unhealthy plant and also bare area. So, next. So, if the high NDVI during November to December, the seroprevalence is going to peak during spring. Next, please. Next, please. So, the question is forest regeneration provides more food and habitat in the spring. Next, please. And also, the precipitation. If we have low precipitation during November to January winter season, we are going to have high seroprevalence during spring. Next, please. Next, please. Yeah. So, the question is less snow during the winter is going to have high seroprevalence in spring. And next, please. And then, I separate the two analyses with the individual of the species, P. manipulatus. Population is sensitive to precipitation. The sensitive here means just only two and one month before. So, which means if we have a low precipitation one to two months before, the seroprevalence of the P. manipulatus is going to peak during spring. So, just only one and two months. And also, P. manipulatus population is sensitive to vegetation change. Next, please. So, now, here is the take-home messages. So, first, drivers of human spillover. First, social and environmental conditions explain infection. Second, spillover is not a random event. Next, please. And predictive tools and signals. First, untowardized transmission is predictable. And the second is rhodendromography can help predict outbreaks. Next, please. Thank you for attention. And we are happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Escobar and Mr. Pansuri. And the QR code is not working. I'm going to send the link in the chat. Okay. Thank you. Sounds good. The chat is not open, but we could maybe briefly open it for you to send the link, or if you want to send it in the, I don't know if it will let you provide the link in the Q&A, if it will let you do that. You can maybe look in there and see if you can start a discussion there. But anyway, we'll move on. Thank you so much. Our next presentation, Human OrthoHantavirus Disease Prevalence and Genotype Distribution in the United States from 2008 to 2020 will be shared by Dr. Shannon Whitmer. Please begin when you're ready. Hi. Great. Thank you for the introduction. My name is Shannon Whitmer. I'm a microbiologist on the Diagnostics and Capacity Building Team in the Viral Special Pathogens Branch at CDC. And today I'd like to discuss some of our key findings from our manuscript entitled Human OrthoHantavirus Disease Prevalence and Genotype Distribution in the U.S. from 2008 to 2020. Next, please. And if you can hit next like three times, please. Perfect. Stop there. So, as the team just discussed, Hantavirus disease, Hantaviruses have worldwide distribution. Individuals acquire disease following exposure to rodent excretia. And that usually happens through cleaning, such as sweeping or wiping up maybe a rodent nest with rodent feces, or potentially through recreational or occupational activities. In limited instances, individuals are also exposed through rodents, through rodent bites, or by possibly eating contaminated food. In the U.S., the main rodent reservoirs that carry Hantaviruses consist of the deer mouse and the white-footed mouse, which are both a peromyscus species. And in the U.S., the cotton rat and the rice rat also carry different Hantaviruses as well. Next, please. And if you can hit next, let's see, about 10 times. So, symptoms of human Hantaviral disease kind of fall into two categories. We have classic Hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome that initially starts out with fatigue, fever, muscle and joint aches, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and then quickly progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS. And one of the key findings, laboratory findings, that individuals with Hantavirus disease also exhibit platelet deficiency. We also observed limited instances of Hantavirus disease that doesn't follow this exact pattern, where individuals will still exhibit fever, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, but surprisingly no respiratory component. And these individuals also exhibit platelet deficiency. For North American Hantavirus strains, there is very limited evidence, in fact, no evidence of human-to-human transmission. So, most individuals are infected following a zoonotic spillover from the rodent reservoir. And individuals that develop Hantavirus disease usually report rodent exposure in the previous 3 to 21 days. Next, please. Okay, and if you could hit next, about 5 to 6 times. Thank you. So, in the United States, human Hantavirus diagnostic testing can happen at four different locations. Quest Labs, and Quest Labs just started a new Hantavirus diagnostic assay in 2025. Focus Labs at the Viral Special Pathogens Branch CDC, where we provide pre-diagnostic testing. And then several state labs also run the CDC assay, although unfortunately that will be ending in 2026. So, once these labs identify human positive cases, they report those laboratory results back to providers and states. And then states report Hantavirus acute cases to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. And then our epidemiology team maintains a Hantavirus registry where additional epidemiological information is collected from those human cases. So, in our manuscript, we wanted to better describe the diagnostic testing that had occurred at CDC from 2008 to 2020, as well as give a broader view of all human Hantavirus cases in the U.S. and their geographic distributions. So, in the figure, if you look on the right, the purple circle, between 1993 and 2020, there were 833 human Hantavirus cases. And in the manuscript, we wanted to focus just on a subset of that from 2008 to 2020, which consisted of 335 human cases. Because human Hantavirus diagnostic testing is distributed across four labs, we don't have a good estimate for the total number of suspect cases that have been tested over time. But instead, we can just look at the diagnostic testing that happened at CDC. And again, we represent one quarter of diagnostic testing in the U.S., approximately. And between 2008 to 2020, if you look at the turquoise circle, we received about 1,000 specimens representing about 800 unique individuals. And from that subset, only 115 were identified as positive specimens. And so, about 100 cases were tested at CDC and confirmed at CDC as Hantavirus positive between 2008 and 2020. And about 235 cases were diagnosed at one of the three other lab testing locations. Next, please. And if you can hit next twice, please. And so, in our manuscript, one of the first questions we wanted to address was when are human Hantavirus cases both detected and occur? And so, between 2008 and 2020, individuals that were Hantavirus positive had symptom onset between March and August. And that trend existed over that full time span. So, most acute cases are detected March to August. And then our next question was, when are human Hantavirus cases detected? Are they detected during acute disease or are they detected during convalescent disease? And that could give us some better estimates for where to focus or try to improve human surveillance efforts. And so, if you look at the map on the right, the color of the state indicates the number of specimens we received from that state for diagnostic testing. And then the pie charts indicate the proportion of cases that were initially detected. And so, you can see across the United States, most cases are detected during acute disease. Although, in some limited instances, individuals are detected during convalescent from Hantavirus disease. Next, please. And if you hit next two more times, please. So, the next question we wanted to ask was, what is the geographic distribution of human Hantavirus cases? And in this map, we're looking at human Hantavirus cases that occurred between 2008 and 2020. On the map, each circle is a positive human Hantavirus case. And in some limited instances, we were able to sequence the virus directly from the human specimen. And so, that also gave us an idea of the viral strain distribution across the U.S. Also, the shadings on the map indicate the rodent, the Peromyscus species distribution across the U.S. And remember, individuals are infected following zoonotic spillover from Peromyscus and other rodent species. And so, what you'll notice from this map is that human Hantavirus cases mainly cluster in the American Southwest. But actually, human Hantavirus disease is broadly distributed across the United States. We also see cases going far up into Maine, Vermont, and upstate New York, and all the way down to Florida as well. The other interesting thing you can see from this map is you can start to get an idea of the viral strain distribution and where these strains are located across the U.S. For example, the Monongahela strain we primarily find in the Northeastern U.S., and Sonombre virus is the most predominant strain that we see across the U.S., although we just have limited sequence information from these cases. Next, please. And if you could hit next two more times, please. Thank you. If we broaden our viewpoint and go all the way back to 1993 to 2020, now you can see the full distribution of human Hantavirus cases across the U.S. and the viral strain distribution as well. In this instance, we're now shading the background of the U.S. by some of the other rodents, other rodents besides the Peromyscus maniculatus, the deer mouse, some of the other rodents that are distributed across the U.S. And what I like about this figure is you can see a nice geographic distribution for some of these viral strains. Now we can see Monongahela starts in the Northeast and continues down the Appalachians. New York strain of virus is predominantly, has only been found in New York region, whereas the Bayou strain is primarily found in Louisiana and coastal Texas. And the Sonombre strain is the most predominant strain found across the U.S. But I do want to note this is just limited sequence information. You can see that there are states such as the Northwest where we have at this point no sequence data from human cases. So the takeaway is that while Hantavirus disease was found in the American Southwest, it is broadly distributed across the domestic U.S. And I do want to note I have not included Hawaii, Alaska, and the other U.S. territories in this plot because we have not had any human cases in those states or territories. Next. Okay. And if you can hit next three more times, please. Thank you. So overall, you can reduce Hantavirus exposure by limiting or reducing your rodent exposure. The viral special pathogens branch that our epidemiology team has put out a really great brochure called Seal Up, Trap Up, Clean Up that describes methods to reduce and eliminate rodent urine and droppings. Everything from cleaning up, you know, rodent droppings on the floor to what happens if you find rodent droppings in your car and other ways to safely clean up and dispose of rodent feces and thus eliminate and reduce your Hantavirus exposure. And individuals that are interested in requesting human diagnostic testing that initially starts with a consultation with the viral special pathogens branch, primarily our epidemiology team that will request some additional information about the potential case and based on that information, recommend testing if they feel that it's warranted. And then just noting that the viral special pathogens branch team, we consist of a team of different experts ranging from microbiologists, ecologists, clinicians, and our epidemiologists as well. Next slide, please. Okay. So in summary, individuals acquire disease following exposure to rodent excretion. In North America, there is no evidence for person-to-person transmission. That is different than what we see in South America where there is some evidence of person-to-person transmission with specific viral strains. Symptoms of disease start as acute febrile disease with or without respiratory symptoms, typically following rodent exposure. Human Hantavirus cases have been broadly detected across the continental U.S. While they are clustered in the American Southwest, we have seen cases up to Maine, Florida, and across the domestic U.S. And noting that multiple Hantavirus strains do cause human disease and some of these strains have a specific geographic region. We don't have enough evidence so far to link a specific viral strain to a specific set of symptoms. I think as we continue to gather additional sequence information as well as metadata, we can start to draw some of those conclusions. But for now, we just don't have enough sequence information to link it back to disease symptoms. And so with that, thank you for your time. And if you want to go to the next slide, thank you so much. And I'll, oh sorry, one more thing. You can reduce your exposure to Hantaviruses through reducing rodent exposure through the seal up, trap up, and clean up approach. And in my, on that slide, I include a link to the brochure describing the different cleanup methods. So with that, thank you so much for your time and I welcome your questions. Over. Thank you for this presentation, Dr. Whitmer. And thanks to all of our presenters today. We do have time for questions. As a reminder, if you have a question, please use the Q&A feature to send your questions in and include the presenter's name or topic if you can. Okay, so I'm going to switch over to the Q&A and I'm going to start with our questions for our first presenters. And I see that Dr. Estovar, you've been answering some questions in the feature already. So I'll read the question and see if you want to provide a verbal response, even though you've answered in the feature, we want to capture this for the recording as well. So our first question, are the models adjusting for abundance? One would think that in the center of this niche, abundance would be higher driving transmission. So I think you answered that, Dr. Estovar. Would you like to provide a verbal answer? Yes, thank you for the question, Bruno. We found that, we didn't have time to show that, but we found that higher abundances of the rodents also occur in the more central areas of the niche when conditions are more optimal. So that's a correct inference. It seems that maybe it's a dense or dependent transmission event. We are still in the infancy to link all these dots. Thank you. Thank you. And then another question that I believe you answered in the chat, what test methods are you using to detect the virus in the rodents? Can you provide a verbal answer? Yes, thank you. This data is collected by the National Science Foundation NEON program, and they collect rodents every week, have been doing that since 2014. They use an ELISA test that is very generalist for many orthohantaviruses. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I see a question. I'm going to jump to this one, and I'm not sure who wants to answer, but please just let me know. Are there any other animal species that are susceptible to hantavirus, companion animals or domestic species? Any takers? I don't know. I don't remember that now. Maybe Shannon? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I don't think we have great data to support that. I'm trying to think of any historical papers that might have looked at that. I'm drawing a blank. I can't think of any. So I don't think that we have any data to support or refute that. Okay. We're doing a review of literature, and it seems that only rodents that are small, because we were even trying to find large rodents that people consume in South and Central America, like apacas, and so far we don't see literature on that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to skip over to Dr. Whitmer so we can get a couple questions in for you. What is the typical treatment for humans with hantavirus? It sounds like it could get confused for seasonal flu based on the symptoms you listed, but I've been told as the disease progresses, the lungs can fill with fluid. Yes, so that's correct. So usually individuals report cleaning out a shed prior to developing symptoms or some other form of rodent exposure. And as of now, the best treatment method is supportive care for individuals that develop respiratory symptoms. They can also use ECMO, extracorporeal oxygen supplementation, to help add extra oxygen into the blood during disease. As of now, it's just supportive care. Okay, thank you. A few questions on the map and geographic distribution. So I guess the first one is, are the dots for the human hantavirus cases based on exposure location or resident address? Yeah. Hey, Connie, great to see you on here again. So the geographic distribution was those locations are plotted based on best exposure location and where we think the exposures occurred. And actually in the manuscript, we had some individuals where we could not determine exposure location. And so we included some of that information in the supplemental figure. Thank you. And again, for you, Dr. Whitmer, or Dr. Escobar, I'm sorry, are the different strains specific to the species? So yes and no. So there's like an old world and new world geographic distribution for hantaviruses. And those strains are associated with specific rodents. In the U.S., let me go back to my map here offline. So for example, Black Creek Canal strain is associated with Sigma Don Hispidus. But that's also kind of been an outstanding question for us. For the other viruses like Sonombre virus, we wanted to better know, and we still don't fully know if the genetic data for the virus, if that separates with the rodent like substrain information. We know Sonombre is carried by Peromyscus Maniculatus. But, you know, an outstanding question is, is there a specific rodent substrain that could better explain some of those genetics? And then on the flip side, we know that Peromyscus Leucopus does carry multiple hantavirus strains as well. So I think we have some more work to do. Luis said it'll keep us busy. Any quick answers from your side? Over. Yes, thank you. We know that if we move to different regions of the world, we have different rodent species and that those rodent species have different hantaviruses in South America and Central America and Asia. And actually, that's something we're investigating now. That's the chapter three of the PhD thesis of my Estelar student, Riley Brennan. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So another question we got is about the temperature range and just want to capture and answer verbally. But the question was, what temperature range was present in the environmental evaluation of mice in West Virginia? Was it high or low temperatures? And Dr. Escobar, would you like to answer? Yeah, thank you. When we measure temperature, we measure temperature during the morning or the highest temperature of the day or temperature at night. So there are many metrics of temperature. So we can go very fine at the level of hours. And we have that data, but we don't have the response to that, I think, especially at the state level. Yeah, but there's something we can investigate. Thank you. Just to maybe address that also, the sampling occurs during the whole year. So we capture all the seasons. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. I think that might have been all the questions that I could see. Please let me know if you notice any other questions that you wanted to address or any other final comments. Let me know if you see anything that I did not see. I think I saw an answer about any other, any different species that are also affected or domestic animals. And someone posted a publication in the chat. So if you ask that question, I think there's someone that posted a link to a publication about an infection in domestic animals and coyotes from New Mexico and Northeastern Arizona. So just wanted to flag that. Okay. Otherwise, if you guys don't see anything else, that will end our Q&A session. And if you end up coming up with any other questions after this call, please feel free to email the presenters. I think the emails were on the last slide. And thank you. And a video of today's webinar will be posted within 30 days. And if you can now go to the next slide. So that will end today's webinar. If you can join us again, please join us on April 1st. And thanks for your participation in today's webinar. And that will be the end. Thank you so much again to our presenters.