Hantavirus not as contagious as Covid, says medical experts

Hantavirus is spread to humans via rodent droppings and urine. Picture: iStock Hot on the heels of Covid but not quite as easily spread, thehantavirus pulmonary syndrome(HPS) is “a severe and sometimes fatal respiratory disease caused by hantaviruses”, said the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). The illness often starts with symptoms that resemble common infections.

“Fever, fatigue, muscle aches, headache, dizziness, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain” are among the early signs, said general practitioner Juandre van den Berg. He said this overlap makes early detection difficult. “A lot of people think that it’s just a common cold,” he said.

“When it starts to get worse people don’t pick it up.” The disease can escalate rapidly after a few days of early symptoms. “Then, patients may develop coughing and shortness of breath due to fluid accumulation in the lungs,” said theNICD. Van den Berg added the condition can deteriorate within hours after the first set of symptoms and carries a case fatality rate of between 30% and 50%.

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“Patients get a terrible severe acute pulmonary disease,” he said, adding that many cases require intensive care and ventilation assistance. The NICD said most infections are linked to environmental exposure rather than human contact. “Human-to-human transmission of hantaviruses that cause HPS is very uncommon,” said the institute, adding that infection typically occurs through inhalation of virus particles from contaminated rodent droppings or urine.

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