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A Hantavirus fever outbreak in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, has killed at least 13 and infected 249 people, a 41 percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to China’s Central News Agency.
Jiang Fachun, director of the Qingdao City Disease Control Center, was quoted by Chinese Broadcasting Net as saying, “Since the October outbreak of Hantavirus fever in Qingdao, the epidemic has been raging on and sweeping farther.”
According to the report, many Qingdao residents have left town; they are panicked and angry at local officials’ failure to control the spread of the epidemic. People from other areas also avoid coming to Qingdao.
Hantavirus is a rare but deadly disease that humans catch from infected rodents. About 35 percent of the people who contract the virus die from it. The epidemic in Qingdao is part of an Asian Hantavirus strain, which can cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.
Epidemics experts said, farmers in rural areas are prone to contracting the viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly in winter when mice migrate from outdoors to indoors.
The report quoted a press release by the Shandong Provincial Health Department, saying the number of Qingdao residents infected with Hantavirus increased in October and reached 140 cases in November, with the number of infected patients climbing. The age of treated patients range from 12 to 69 years.
Qingdao is a viral hemorrhagic fever-prone area. Since symptoms of the fever syndrome are similar to a cold in its beginning stage, Hantavirus fever can be mistaken for a cold. When rushed to the hospital, most patients are already in critical condition. Almost all patients are rural residents, many of them “cut off” in their prime, the report said.
Read the original Chinese article.
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