Hey, it's Flora, and you are listening to Science Friday.

Two disease outbreaks are dominating the news.

Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Hanta virus, which started spreading on a cruise ship.

In the U.S., there's a one-of-a-kind medical facility that exists just for emergencies like these. It's called the

National Quarantine Unit, and it's in Omaha, Nebraska. Americans exposed to dangerous diseases

are evacuated there. Right now, 18 Americans from the cruise ship where Hontovirus broke out

are in quarantine at that facility in Omaha. And today, we're going behind the scenes with one of

the nurses who's worked there for the last 17 years to hear how the facility works, the latest

with these travelers exposed to hanta virus, and how this facility is preparing for the

possibility of Ebola-exposed patients. Angie Vasha is the director of emergency preparedness

and special pathogens programs at Nebraska Medicine. Angie,asha is the Director of Emergency Preparedness and Special Pathogens

Programs at Nebraska Medicine. Angie, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

How many hantavirus-exposed patients do you have right now? And how are they doing? Yeah, so right now we have

18 individuals who have been with us since May 11th, And they, you know, all of our individuals remain well.

So with quarantine, we were providing monitoring and observation for the potential development of symptoms.

And then if those symptoms developed, they would be moved over to our biocontainment unit, which is in our hospital. And so thus far,

all of our guests remain well. I think, you know, like most folks that would be in a quarantine

situation, people get a little bit stir crazy after a few days. And so our focus right now on this

phase of response is really maintaining mental and physical stimulation opportunities.

And so we're really focusing on making sure we're supporting holistically what they need to sustain their time here with us, which was proposed to be 42 days for the full incubation period.

42 days.

Yes. Yes.

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