NewsDesk @bactiman63

The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported recently on the first case of hantavirus in the country in 2023.

Image/Robert Herriman

The case is a woman in her 30s in central Taiwan, whose family member was diagnosed with hantavirus syndrome in November last year (2022). The patient was hospitalized, treated and discharged and is currently in stable condition.

She has no recent travel history, and her main activities are at work and around her home. She often comes into contact with rodents at work, and may come into contact with wild rat excrement in her daily activities.

According to statistics from the CDC, there have been 5 confirmed cases of hantavirus syndrome in Taiwan in 2022.

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According to the Department of Disease Control and Prevention, Hantavirus syndrome is a zoonotic infectious disease. Human beings are infected by inhalation or contact with flying dust or objects contaminated with hantavirus rodent excrement or secretions (including feces, urine, saliva), or are infected Infection is caused by the bite of a virus-carrying rodent, and the chance of transmission through human-to-human contact is extremely low. Hantavirus syndrome is divided into two types according to clinical symptoms: “Hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome” and “Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome”. The main symptoms after hemorrhagic fever infection are sudden and persistent fever, conjunctival hyperemia, weakness, and back pain , headache, abdominal pain, anorexia, vomiting, etc. Bleeding symptoms appear on the 3rd to 6th day, followed by proteinuria, hypotension or oliguria, some patients may develop shock or mild nephropathy, and may progress to acute renal failure, The condition can improve after treatment.