A health alert has been issued in the state of Arizona, in the United States, after a rodent-borne hantavirus killed four people. The virus spreads to humans through droplets from the urine, saliva, or faeces of the rats.

From January to July, the Arizona Department of Health Services documented seven instances of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, a serious and occasionally lethal respiratory disease.

Two cases related to this deadly virus have also been found in California. The virus, primarily carried by deer mice in the Grand Canyon State, causes symptoms such as fever, headache, and muscle pain, which can rapidly progress to difficulty breathing. While hantavirus is not spread from person to person, it can occur in various regions and is not limited to a specific area.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents and can cause varied disease syndromes in people worldwide. This can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), the CDC website says.

Symptoms:

Hantavirus symptoms start with fatigue, fever, muscle aches, headaches, chills, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Late symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath, with a 38% mortality rate for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) symptoms appear 1-8 weeks post-exposure, causing headaches, pain, fever, chills, nausea, and blurred vision. Severe cases may lead to low blood pressure, shock, vascular leakage, and kidney failure. Recovery can take weeks or months.

Treatment:

The CDC says there is no specific treatment, cure, or vaccine for hantavirus infection. However, if the infected are recognised early on and are provided medical care in an intensive care unit, they may do better. In intensive care, patients are intubated and given oxygen therapy to help them through the period of severe respiratory distress.

Prevention:

According to the Centres for Disease Control, rodent control is the primary necessity to prevent hantavirus infections. Contact with rodent urine, droppings, saliva, and nesting materials should be avoided when cleaning rodent-infested areas.