Hantavirus Strikes A Record Number (4)

As With Lyme Disease And Bird Flu Environmental Conditions Lead To Disease Outbreaks Hantavirus has killed three people in a week in Colorado, and four this year -- matching the record number of cases for the state, set in 1993, the year the deadly pathogen was first discovered. The virus is spread by deer mice, and about 1 in 10 mice is infected. Humans are exposed they breathe in tiny dust particles from mouse waste -- something that can easily happen when cleaning areas that have been housing mice. Of the 465 people who had become ill with Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome between 1993 and March 2007, 35% died. The lung-choking illness caused by Hantavirus is in a family of diseases studied as part of a field known as Conservation Medicine. The concept is that environmental conditions lead to the emergence, spread and outbreak of new or formerly dormant diseases. Examples include Lyme disease -- spread by a bacterium that lives in mice and is spread by black-legged ticks (also called deer ticks or Lyme ticks) -- which has run rampant on the East Coast and elsewhere in the last decade, as suburban sprawl enhanced the ecosystem for the animals involved in disease transmission. Avian influenza is another example -- as wild and domestic birds are made to flock together in close proximity to humans and pigs, the possibility for a virus to mutate into a person-to-person pathogen grows greater. For more information about Hantavirus and how you can avoid it, go to this Centers for Disease Control And Prevention Web site. For more on Conservation Medicine, visit one of the pioneering organizations in the field, Wildlife Trust.