Coronavirus: Should we be worried about the hantavirus?
The death of a Chinese worker from hantavirus during the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in Shandong (China) has generated a fresh wave of concern.
Infection Control, (acclaimed medical journal) maintain that hantavirus is a disease that affects the respiratory system like Covid-19 but until recently it had been unclear how exactly it infects lung cells. While researchers have pointed out that hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) is comparatively rare, the death of a man in China from the illness on Monday as reported by the state-run Global Times has raised concerns over the possible spread of the disease alongside Covid-19.
"In the eye of a storm like #COVID19, scientific and public health tools are essential, but so are humility and kindness.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 30, 2020
With solidarity, humility and assuming the best of each other, we can – and will – overcome this together"-@DrTedros #coronavirus
It has yet to be determined how and when the man contracted HPS, although it has been suggested that he had already been infected prior to the coronavirus outbreak in China. Symptoms of HPS include fatigue, fever and muscle pain, with a cough and breathing difficulties developing later. The disease is contracted via the inhalation of the urine, faeces, or saliva of infected rodents and has a mortality rate of around 40, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Amid the mounting risks the novel #coronavirus has brought to the world, President Xi Jinping's call for "an all-out global war" against the pandemic at the recent #G20 Extraordinary Leader's Summit has great relevance to addressing the global public health crisis. #XiJinping
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) March 30, 2020
Hantavirus case in China "no cause for concern"
While researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have warned that rising global temperatures over the next few decades due to climate change could lead to an increase in cases of HPS, a Newsweek report stated that human-to-human transmission is extremely rare and the single case in China is of no cause for concern.
Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist at Wuhan University, is quoted by Newsweek as telling the Global Times: "There is no need to worry about the hantavirus. Hantavirus disease is preventable and controllable and there are vaccines to prevent it. Its incidence in urban cities is very low as the disease is mainly found in rural villages where rats tend to appear when people are working in the field."
China's #COVID19 #vaccine is undergoing clinical trials. Some 5,000 people in Wuhan signed up and 108 people were eventually able to participate in the Phase I trial. Here is GT's interview with two of them. pic.twitter.com/B2GWLSVIvg
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 30, 2020
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