Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndfrome

10 Facts

• full name-Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (Hantavirus Pulmonary)
• passed from rodents (Clinic, Mayo)
• comes from the Haatan River is Korea (Hantavirus Disease)
• not from person to person (Hantavirus Infections)
• flu-like (HPS)
• rodent droppings/urine inhalation causes disease (Hantavirus Pulmonary)
• no special treatment (Clinic, Mayo)
• deadly (HPS)
• has a recent outbreak (Hantavirus Pulmonary)
• gets into cytoplasm (Hantavirus, Wikipedia)

Description/Cause of Disease

• rodent droppings (Hantavirus)
• rodent urine (Hantavirus Pulmonary)
• open cuts/wounds from rodents (Hantavirus, Wikipedia)
• smelling rodent air (Clinic, Mayo)
• rodent saliva touching the skin (HPS)
• dealing with dead rodents (Hantavirus Infections)
• old shed areas (Hantavirus Disease)

CDC/WHO doing to help

• preventing rodent infestations (HPS)
• reducing cases (Hantavirus, Wikipedia)
• working on medicine (Hantavirus Pulmonary)

Areas where it occurs

• Korea (Hantavirus Disease)
• U.S.A (Clinic, Ma)
• North America (Hantavirus Pulmonary)
• Scandinavia (Hantavirus and Hanta)
• Europe (HPS)

Symptoms and Treatment

• Symptoms
• muscle aches (HPS)
• chills (Hantavirus, Wikipedia)
• kindey failure (Hantavirus)
• coughing (Hantavirus and Hanta)
• fevers (Hantanvirus)

Case Study

          You would never think that a twenty-four year old exterminator would come just a few minutes away from death. Twenty-four Figglehorn D. is engaged to a beautiful young lady and has a new born son. He is African-American and works as a full-time exterminator. He was at risk for getting Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. Hantavirus isn’t a contagious disease, so whomever he came in contact with could not have been infected with the disease. When cleaning the Morrison’s house of pests as well as rodents, Figglehorn came in contact with rodent droppings next to the droppings was the dead deer mouse who laid them. He inhaled the toxins from the droppings which caused him to get Hantavirus.

            He realized that a week after exterminating the Morrison’s home, they all became ill and were still in the hospital. He started to feel a little sick himself. Later in the day he got the chills really bad. He also got an extremely high fever. He also got a horrible cough. When he realized that something was wrong he knew he had to go to the doctors. Through the days his symptoms started to get worst. Little, did Figglehorn know he was facing a serious disease. Hantavirus stopped him from going to work, which made him start to think this is a very serious matter! Later on the next day he finally went to the Emergency Room. They took him into a room and tried to diagnose what he had. After taking an X-ray the figured out he had Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.

            The doctors came into the room back and forth wondering what type of medicine they needed to administrate to him. They told him the disease was not contagious so he couldn’t have passed it on to his family, or any other people he came in contact with while getting the disease. They hooked him up to an I.V. to keep him hydrated. They decided to distribute medicine to him through his I.V. as well. Their best bet was giving him Ribavirin. He was taking to pills of the ribavirin, and a liquid version through his I.V. of an ativiral drug. The medicine did have a horrible side effect that was not mentioned to him. The sickness caused him to face a kidney failure and the medicine made it worst. When describing that his stomach pain came from nowhere and was horrible they felt his abdominal area, and realized that something was wrong. His left kidney had completely failed on him. There was a surgery that could replace it, but he needed to discuss it with his fiancé first. He felt dizzy, nausea, and was a little irritable. When he called his fiancé she said she was coming over to the hospital, and left their son with a close relative. About an hour later she was there asking him about what had happened and what would be the best treatment to go with. He didn’t want the surgery because of the risk of death and the side effects so they both decided to just take a risk and have him live with one kidney. He would just have to be very careful for the rest of his life!

            In the end he ended up surving the disease. He faced a long line of difficulty with the aftershock, but has maintained to teach his son in the best way he can, he is married now, and has quit his job as an exterminator. As for the Morrison’s family, we will never know!