Hantavirus at Yosemite?

[wvbreamfisherman]

Oddly enough, we just had a fatality from the Yosemite hantavirus outbreak, here in Kanawha County, WV. Apparently , they stayed at that tent cabin village. Not many details in the local news accounts.

[hummingbird]

I heard about that WV. The problem with hantavirus is that there are no drugs or treatments for it. It's a virus so it's sort of like the flu. With it becoming more common, I would expect someone is working on an antiviral to treat it like they have for the flu. Even the drug that treats the common flu takes several days to work and if you don't catch it early, it runs it's course anyway. As I said earlier, I think we are identifying these diseases now, when in the past we just called it "flu" or something else. I know viruses mutate but I have a feeling this has been here for a while now.

[TroyS]

I certainly hope so, hummingbird. It would be quite scary to know how it's spreading and people getting infected and nothing can be done about it.

[Grandpa]

As Ppine said, It is caused by coming into contact with feces or urine from the common deer mouse. (The brown with white belly) Other rodents, including the grey mouse have not been identified as carriers.

I agree with Judy Ann. Avoid places where mice can congregate, maintain cleanliness in your own campsite and don't handle dead rodents bare handed. And since there are a couple of threads circulating, I'll repeat here. KEEP FOOD out of your tent and in a safe place. This may be standard in bear country but it is just as important ANYWHERE.

[wvbreamfisherman]

Hantavirus has been around for a good while. You get these outbreaks when people for some reason encounter high enough concentrations of infected rodent droppings. I wouldn't be too surprised if the percentage of infected rodents doesn't fluctuate cyclicly as well.

As you mentioned, I suspect thare are quite a few diseases out there that we tab as "cold" or "flu" or "stomach flu" or whatever, and they are nothing of the sort. They only get attention when a large number of people get sick at once, or a cluster of serious illness or fatalities happens.

Sort of like Legionnaire's Disease- I'm pretty sure that bug has been around for ages, but it happened to hit a group of people under just the right conditions (aerosolized from the air conditioning system). to cause a nasty cluster.

[3ofusnow]

I have been watching the news come out about the hantavirus and it is kind of scary. I remember watching a Crossing Jordan episode where a form of the hantavirus mutated and killed a bunch of people because it was spread by droplets. I know that is just tv, but the world IS due for another mass die off of the human population.