ZNew Mexico officials announced on Friday that the wife of Egg Hakman, Betsy Arakawa, died due to the Hantaf virus infection in the Huntf virus in New Mexico.
The Hantavirus virus, located all over the world, is spread by touching rodents, urine or stool. It does not spread among people. There is no specific treatment or treatment, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.
Infection can advance and become a life threatening.
“It really starts like influenza: body pain, feeling in general,” said Dr. Songa Bartolum of the Uti South Western Medical Center in Dallas. “Early the disease, you may not be able to know the difference between the Huntaf and influenza virus.”
The virus can cause severe lung infection, sometimes called Hantafos syndrome, according to the American Centers for Control and Prevention. The agency began tracking the virus after the outbreak of 1993 in the four Zawaya region – the region that met Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico and Utah.
Dr. Michel Harkins, a lung disease doctor at the Health Sciences Center at New Mexico University, who was studying the disease and assisting patients, said the smart doctor in the Indian health service first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients.
She said: “They were in good health, and they did not face any medical problems and they came with the arrest of the pulmonary heart,” which prompted the involvement of the Center for Disease Control, as experts worked to determine what patients participate.
The majority of the United States since then have been in the western states, especially the southwest. Between 1993 and 2022, there were 864 American cases reported. New Mexico had the highest number of that time, in 122, followed by Colorado in 119.
Seven cases were confirmed in 2023 and another seven in 2024, according to the Ministry of Health in New Mexico. As for deaths, the state reached 52 between 1975 and 2023.
The Disease Control Center offered to test samples participating in the case of Arakawa to learn more about the viruses that afflicted it and conduct a pathology test.
Symptoms begin after a week to eight weeks of exposure, and they can initially include fatigue, fever and muscles, according to the Center for Disease Control. With the progress of the disease, symptoms can include coughing, shortness of breath and distress in the chest when the lungs are filled with liquid. The Disease Control Center says about a third of people developing respiratory symptoms of the disease can die.
Despite the years of research, Harkins said that no questions have been answered, including the reason for their existence for some people and very intense for others and how antibodies are developed. She and other researchers were following patients for long periods of time in the hope of finding a treatment.
“Many puzzles,” she said, noting that what the researchers know is that exposure to mouse is a key.
The best way to avoid germs is to reduce rodent contact and their balcony. Use protective gloves and a whitening solution to clean rodent waste. Public health experts have warned of sweeping or void that can enter a virus in the air.
The associated press authors Michael Stop and Susan Montowia Brian contributed to this report.