Eliminate Your Fears And Doubts About Hantavirus.

The world is already facing challenges to knock down coronavirus amidst that death due to hantavirus in China has added up worries. Hantavirus is associated with rodents, unlike COVID-19 which is betacoronavirus, associated with bats. Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) is a severe respiratory disease in humans known to be caused by infection with hantaviruses. It may sometime prove to be fatal, however, it is rare and the chance of getting the diseases is 1 in 13,000,000. A person who is exposed to rodents carrying hantavirus is at the risk of developing the disease. Only some kinds of mice and rats can give people hantaviruses that can cause HPS. In North America, they are the deer mouse, the white-footed mouse, the rice rat, and the cotton rat. Hantavirus spreads to humans through contact (inhalation or ingestion) with rodent droppings, urine and saliva as well. We can even get the infection if we touch their eyes, mouth, and eyes.

 Discovery of Hantavirus.

 Hantavirus is not a newly discovered virus and was first recognized in the early 1950s. Nearly about 3,000 United Nations troops stationed in Korea were infected by this virus. It was formerly known as Korean hemorrhagic fever; it got its name Hanta after the Haantan river of Korea. HPS, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome became nationally notified disease in 1995 and about 20-40 cases of HPS are reported each year in the US.

 Different types of illnesses caused by Hantavirus. 

 Hantavirus is known to cause three different illnesses.

 1 HFRS (Hemorrhagic fever with Renal syndrome).

 2 NE (Nephropathia epidemica)

 3 Pulmonary syndrome.

 HFRS and NE primarily affect kidneys while pulmonary syndrome affects the lungs. Pulmonary syndrome is more common in Americans, while HFRS and NE are common among European and Asian countries. HFRS and NE last from 3days to 3 months. Symptoms include fever, headache, chills, nausea and abdominal pain, HFRS can also cause late symptoms like leaking blood vessels and failure of the kidney.

 HPS is more severe and generally, 4/10 people infected die, its symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, nausea, diarrhea, stomach pain. Late symptom developed after 4-10 days of illness includes coughing, trouble in breathing and inability to breathe since the lungs are filled with fluid. 

Transmission of hantavirus. 

 Rodents shed virus via their urine, feces or saliva and when a healthy person inhales air contaminated with the virus (airborne transmission) they get infected. A person may also get infected if a rodent with hantavirus bites someone or eats food contaminated by droppings, urine or saliva from an infected rodent. However, person-to-person contact occurred in the case of the Andes virus in Argentina and Chile. Unlike COVID-19 it is not spread through social contact, caring for someone infected by Hantavirus and use of communal utensils. So, hantavirus does not spread from person to person.

Hantavirus prevention and control. 

 To date, there is no reliable cure for hantavirus, however, early treatment in the intensive care unit can help a person recover. Some preventive measures to control hantavirus includes:

 1. Stay away from all those places where droppings of rodents are found.

 2. Always wear gloves and masks to avoid exposure to mouse droppings.

 3. Areas with mouse droppings should be sanitized using disinfectants so that the infected dust does not spread in the air.

 4. Keep the population of rodents under control by using traps.

 5. Never leave your food unattended and should always be kept properly covered.

 6. Eliminate any sort of contact with rodents at homes and workplaces.

 So, we don’t need to worry about as there is no indication of global public health threat by the hantavirus as it spreads only due to close contact with rodent urine, droppings or saliva.