Several pharmaceutical stocks surged on Monday as investors assessed which company might be best primed to tackle an outbreak of the hantavirus . The World Health Organization flagged an outbreak of hantavirus, a fatal and viral respiratory disease spread by rodents, on May 2, after some passengers caught it on a Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship, the MV Hondius, which was sailing the Atlantic. The public health risk for the virus is low, according to the WHO and other health authorities