Of Mice, Men, and Microbes—Hantavirus
- David R. Harper &
- Andrea S. Meyer
Academic Press, 278 pages, 1999 012326460X | ISBN: 0-123-26460-X
In the spring of 1993, a cluster of cases of acute, unexplained respiratory distress with high mortality drew public and scientific attention to the Four Corners area of the southwestern United States. An intensive investigation involving several state and local health departments, the Indian Health Service, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) led to the description of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and the identification of its etiologic agent—a previously unknown hantavirus now called sin nombre virus (SNV)—and its association with a widespread North American rodent, the deer mouse. We now know that HPS occurs throughout the United States (indeed, probably throughout the Americas) and is caused by a group of hantaviruses carried by members of a large subfamily of New World rodents. Since the 1993 outbreak, there have been 20–30 confirmed cases of HPS annually in the United States—a relatively minor public health problem compared with the effect of many other infectious diseases. Nevertheless, mortality is high (now about 43%) and the disease is dramatic, as are the life-support measures often required for HPS patients (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation is not uncommon).
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