Table of Contents
UNDERSTANDING HANTAVIRUS
- While Coronavirus has brought the whole world to a halt, resulting in major lockdowns, another virus has emerged in China, increasing people’s worries. A man in China’s Yunnan Province tested positive for Hantavirus and died shortly afterward on March 23, 2020.
WHAT IS HANTAVIRUS?
- Hantavirus or Orthohantavirus is an old family of viruses, which mainly spreads through rodents or rats. It can cause various diseases including hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). It can also cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
HOW IT SPREADS
- The disease is not airborne and can only spread to people if they come in contact with urine, feces, and saliva of rodents and less frequently by a bite from an infected host.
MORTALITY RATE
- Early symptoms of HPS include fatigue, fever, and muscle aches, along with headaches, dizziness, chills and abdominal problems. If left untreated, it can lead to coughing and shortness of breath and can be fatal, with a mortality rate of 38 percent, according to CDC.
NO PERSON TO PERSON SPREAD
- HPS can’t be passed on from person to person, while HFRS transmission between people is extremely rare.
- As per the CDC, rodent population control is the primary strategy for preventing hantavirus infections.
HOW DID IT GET THE NAME?
- Hantavirus is named for the Hantan River area in South Korea where an early outbreak was observed, and was isolated in 1976 by Ho-Wang Lee.
OCCASIONAL OUTBREAKS
- In the US, 10 confirmed cases of hantavirus infection in people who visited Yosemite National Park in California, US, in November, 2012, were reported. Similarly, in 2017, CDC assisted health officials in investigating an outbreak of Seoul virus infection that infected 17 people in seven states.
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