A man in China died on his way to work. And the coronavirus has nothing to do with it.
While the whole world is suffering huge losses from the ill-fated coronavirus, frightening news flew in from China – another virus appeared there, which has already claimed the life of one person.
A resident of Yunnan province died on the bus while driving to work. He was tested for the new hantavirus, and the test came back positive.
As with the coronavirus, hantavirus can be transmitted from animals (in particular, rodents) and their waste products.
But infection from person to person for this virus is not typical, although cases were still recorded in Chile and Argentina.
Symptoms are not pleasant – fever, bleeding, and kidney damage.
The type hantavirus strain was first described in 1978. Usually, the infection is mild, but over the past few years, fatal cases have been described, with four of them occurring in 2009 in the Krasnodar Territory.