Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome - Montana
May 13, 2003
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2003/05/10/build/local/43-hantavirus.inc
Montana: Death of Woman in Great Falls is 4th Fatality in the State
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Tests have confirmed that a Cascade County woman died of a
hantaviral infection, state health officials reported on Fri 9 May
2003. The death on Thu 8 May 2003 was Montana's 4th fatality and
18th case of the life-threatening disease that is carried and spread
by wild rodents.
Ken Pekoc, spokesman for the Montana Department of Public
Health and Human Services, said the woman, already suffering from
advanced stages of the illness, was hospitalized on Wed 7 May
2003 in Great Falls and died early Thursday.
The last confirmed hantavirus cases in the state were in April and
June 2001, in Gallatin and Teton counties.The first case in Montana
was diagnosed in September 1993. The 3 previous victims were
men from Great Falls, Cut Bank, and Malta.
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a severe respiratory infection
spread by rodent urine, feces, or saliva. People typically become
sick about 2 weeks after breathing virus particles stirred up in a
rodent-infested space, such as when sweeping a mouse nest out of
a barn or cabin. The flu-like symptoms include fever, shortness of
breath, chills, muscle and body aches, cough, nausea, headache,
diarrhea, and abdominal pain. No cure for the disease has
been developed, but hospital care is needed to help a victim's body
fight the infection.
Through the end of March 2003, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention [CDC] had reported a total of 335 cases of
hantavirus in the United States. 38 percent of all reported cases
have resulted in death, according o the agency. Cases have been
reported in 31 states, including most of the Western half of the
country and some Eastern states as well.
--
A-Lan Banks
<A-Lan.Banks@derwent.co.uk>
[C.H. Calisher, a hantavirus expert and a former ProMED-mail
Moderator, has supplied the following information. The etiologic
agent has not been identified but is likely to be _Sin Nombre virus_;
8-20 percent of deer mice (the rodent reservoir host) in the county
where the patient lived are infected with _Sin Nombre virus_. There
are fewer than a million people in Montana; 18 diagnosed cases with
4 deaths since 1993 is not a high prevalence, and the case-fatality
rate is below the national average. - Mod.CP]
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