Disease Information for Hanta virus/Navaho disease: Definition

Synonym: Sin nombre; Hanta virus pulmonary syndrome; Epizootic hanta virus pulmonary infection from small mammals/ground squirrels in southwest usa; often lethal pulmonary infiltrate with fulminant course; adult respiratory distress syndrome; low platelet counts; cyanosis and acute cough with fever,headache, myalgias; serum titers acute and chronic confirm; very high white count with no response to antibiotics; 12-16 days incubation;absent encephalitis ; minor hemorrhagic, hepatitic, nephropaty effects;----------------------------------. HANTAVIRUS PULMONARY SYNDROME (HPS) This syndrome is caused by a number of New World sigmodontine rodent-borne hantaviruses indigenous to rural areas of the Americas and is a consequence of sylvatic or peridomestic transmission; Like the epidemiology of their Old World cousins, there is a relative paucity of pediatric cases; A brief nondescript febrile prodrome with chills, myalgia, malaise, diarrhea, and headache is generally followed by the precipitous onset of the characteristic cardiopulmonary phase with some degree of hypotension and progressive evidence of pulmonary edema and hypoxia as a result of capillary leak; Seventy-five percent of patients survive this phase; the remainder die of cardiovascular collapse; In South America, Andes virus infection may be associated with facial flushing, petechiae, and occasionally frank hemorrhage with person-to-person transmission; Overt hemorrhage occurs rarely in severe cases in North America; Bilateral interstitial pulmonary infiltrates in conjunction with shock are a hallmark of severe disease, as is the triad of thrombocytopenia, immature neutrophils, and circulating immunoblasts; Atypical presentations with prominent renal insufficiency and myositis have been reported as have asymptomatic and mild infections without pulmonary involvement; [Rudolph"s Pediatrics 2002]

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