Arizona health officials are growing concerned after seeing an increase in a rare virus spread by rodents that could cause serious health problems.
what’s happening?
As Physicians Weekly explained, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced in an alert that hantavirus infections are on the rise in the state, with seven confirmed cases and three deaths in the past six months.
“Hantaviruses are a rare but important cause of severe and potentially fatal respiratory infections,” Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in New York, told Physicians Weekly to NBC News. “The virus is transmitted by a variety of rodents, particularly deer mice, and while it can cause mild illness, it causes fatal disease in a significant percentage of people who contract it.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most cases of hantavirus infection in the United States have been reported in western and southwestern states, but Arizona ranks high in the number of reported infections in the country. Health officials report that there have been 11 cases of hantavirus infection in Arizona between 2016 and 2022, according to Physician’s Weekly.
Why is this important?
Hantavirus spreads when virus-containing particles are released into the air from the urine, saliva or feces of deer mice, and infection can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS).
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. If left untreated, the infection can spread to the lungs, causing shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing, according to the American Lung Association and summarized by Physician’s Weekly. About 38% of people who experience pulmonary symptoms can die from the infection.
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While the disease is rare in the United States, where the CDC has reported 850 cases between 1993 and 2021 (about 30 per year), the rise in hantavirus cases indicates a more serious problem.
According to Physicians Weekly, experts speculate that the increase in infections “may also be due to climate change, including the extreme heatwaves that hit the country this summer.”
Trish Reese, a spokeswoman for Arizona’s Coconino County Health and Human Services Department, told NBC News that cases are more prevalent in the summer because rodent activity increases and people have more opportunities to come into contact with them.
Dr. Camilo Mora, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, explained that rising temperatures will cause rodents to seek shelter in a similar way to humans.
“Many disease-carrying species migrate with climate change, so it’s difficult to conclude that climate change is the cause in any particular case, but climate change has all the characteristics to cause vector-borne disease outbreaks,” Mora told Physician’s Weekly.
What is being done about this?
Officials warned that the best way to protect oneself from the hantavirus is to wear an N95 mask, gloves and protective clothing when entering unclean or rodent-infested areas, and anyone who develops symptoms should seek immediate medical attention.
“The best way to prevent the spread of this disease is to carefully disinfect and clean up rat waste and avoid contact with rats,” Glatt told NBC News.
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