Hantavirus, the potentially lethal infection that killed actor Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa earlier this year, has claimed the life of a third person in the isolated California town of Mammoth Lakes.
Mono County Health & Human Services verified the death of a young adult from the illness in a statement released Thursday.
“We don’t have a clear sense of where this young adult may have contracted the virus,” Dr. Tom Boo, the county’s public health officer stated. “The home had no evidence of mouse activity. We observed some mice in the workplace, which is not unusual for indoor spaces this time of year in Mammoth Lakes. We haven’t identified any other activities in the weeks before illness that would have increased this person’s exposure to mice or their droppings.”
Contact with rodents or their urine or feces can spread the hantavirus, which is present all over the world. It doesn’t spread from person to person. Although there isn’t a precise cure or therapy, survival chances can be raised with early medical intervention.
An infection has the potential to spread quickly and prove fatal.
“It really starts like the flu: body aches, feeling poorly overall,” Dr. Sonja Bartolome of UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas stated. “Early in the illness, you really may not be able to tell the difference between hantavirus and having the flu.”
According to the CDC, the virus can result in a serious and occasionally fatal lung infection known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. According to health experts, this illness, which is spread by deer mice, was linked to all three of the deaths in Mono County.
According to Boo, the Mammoth Lakes region is expected to have a large number of deer mice this year. He added that “an increase in indoor mice elevates the risk of Hantavirus exposure.”
Boo stated that they do not think any of the three people who have died in the county thus far “engaged in activities typically associated with exposure, such as cleaning out poorly ventilated indoor areas or outbuildings with a lot of mouse waste.”
“Instead, these folks may have been exposed during normal daily activities, either in the home or the workplace.”
All three residents started feeling sick in February, according to the Mono County Health & Human Services press release. One had “many mice in their home,” while the other three had “some evidence of mice” in their places of employment “but no major infestations were found.”
Vacuuming “can aerosolize the virus through the air and lead to infection,” the department said, noting that one individual had been vacuuming “in one or more areas where investigators later found mouse droppings.”
Keeping as little contact as possible with rodents and their droppings is the best defense against the infection. To clean up rodent droppings, use a bleach solution and safety gloves.
Following an epidemic in the Four Corners region (the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet) in 1993, the CDC started monitoring the virus. Since then, western states have recorded the majority of U.S. cases. This comprises 78 cases that were documented in California from 1993 to 2022.
The three cases detected so far this year are “strikingly unusual,” even though hantavirus is not uncommon in Mono County—27 instances have been reported since 1993. Cases are usually observed in late spring or summer.
Mono County had not experienced a hantavirus infection since 2019 until the cases were verified this year.
Health professionals stated that hantavirus is not contagious. Approximately one-third of those who do contract the infection pass away.
Arakawa, who was discovered dead in the house she shared with her husband, Hackman, was determined by New Mexico officials last month to have died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The 65-year-old Arakawa’s possible infection source has not been disclosed by authorities.
Investigators found that days after his wife passed away, Hackman, 95, passed away from heart disease with Alzheimer’s complications. Zinna, their dog, was discovered dead from malnutrition and dehydration.
This information has been sourced from KTLA.
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