When the Chinese tabloid Global Times reported that a worker contracted with a hantavirus had died in China, the news electrified many people and spread like wildfire on social media. Will we face another enemy in the face of the coronavirus pandemic? Scientists explain.
The information comes from the Chinese tabloid Global Times, published in English, which described the case of a worker from Yunnan Province who traveled to work in Shantung Province. Tests carried out after his death excluded the presence of coronavirus in his body, but confirmed that the cause of the man's death was a hantavirus infection.
The news has alarmed people all over the world, it spread through social media bearing the hashtag hantavirus.
Fortunately, the information was quickly addressed by scientists who reassured that the hantavirus is not a new virus at all and does not have the same spreading potential as the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus. This is another example of fake news that is only meant to scare people already troubled by the current pandemic.
Contents:
- Hantaviruses - origin
- Hantaviruses - characteristics and occurrence
Hantaviruses - origin
The hantavirus family includes more than 20 species and has been known at least since the Korean War in the 1950s, when fever, skin bruising, conjunctival hyperaemia, and acute kidney failure were observed in several thousand American and Korean soldiers. Some patients developed shock and mortality reached 10%
The virus was first isolated in 1978 from a field mouse caught near the Hantaan River in eastern Korea.
Hantaviruses - characteristics and occurrence
Hantaviruses are transmitted by rodents such as mice, voles, rats and deer, which excrete them in urine, faeces and saliva. A person can become infected through the ingestion - after consuming their excreta, or - much more often - by inhalation, inhaling dust containing the virus. It is enough for him to clean old, neglected attics, summer houses or cellars where rodents have settled, and there is a lot of their excrement there.
Hantaviruses are found in Asia, the Americas and Europe, and their names usually come from the place where the disease occurs, for example hantavirus Seoul, Puumala, Dobrava-Belgrade, Asama, Gou, Saaremaa,Serang, Thailand, Thottapalayam or Nova.
Depending on the geographic region, they can cause various diseases with different symptoms, including:
- Hantaviral Pulmonary Syndrome,
- Hantaviral Cardiopulmonary Syndrome,
- hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.
In China, tens of thousands of infections are recorded annually, while in Poland such infections are sporadic.
According to the data of the National Institute of Public He alth - National Institute of Hygiene in 2007-17, 128 people in Poland fell ill with hemorrhagic fever caused by hantavirus. In 2022, 11 cases were recorded, and in 2022 - 9. Fortunately, our country is dominated by the Scandinavian variant of the virus, i.e. Puumala type (PUUV), which causes mild symptoms of the disease. The type is transmitted by the forest mouse and the bank voles.
Contrary to the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, the hantavirusdoes not spread easily between people, and the sick person is not dangerous to other people . The exception is the South American Andy virus, which causes Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.
In addition, for 20 yearsthere is a vaccinethat has been used since 2008 in China in regions where there is an increased risk of infection.
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