Virginia Tech researchers found six new rodent carriers of hantavirus and recognized U.S. hotspots, highlighting the virus’s adaptability and the influence of local weather and ecology on its unfold.
Hantavirus just lately drew public consideration following stories that it was the reason for loss of life for Betsy Arakawa, spouse of actor Gene Hackman. Regardless of the headlines, the virus stays comparatively unfamiliar to many, past its identified affiliation with rodents.
Researchers at Virginia Tech have deepened scientific understanding of this doubtlessly lethal virus by learning its rodent hosts throughout North America. Utilizing knowledge from the Nationwide Science Basis, the group recognized three main hotspots of hantavirus exercise in wildlife: Virginia, Colorado, and Texas. Additionally they documented 15 rodent species carrying the virus, six of which had not beforehand been acknowledged as hosts.
The findings have been revealed within the journal Ecosphere.
A Virus With Pandemic Potential
“This challenge is well timed as a result of hantavirus is taken into account an rising illness of pandemic potential with signs that resemble extreme COVID-19 infections,” stated Paanwaris Paansri, a Ph.D. pupil within the Division of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and co-author of the examine.
Hantaviruses are a household of viruses which have been recognized in areas all around the globe and may attain mortality charges just like different ailments of excessive concern, equivalent to nipah and Ebola. In Asia, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome is brought on by the Hantaan virus, in Europe that syndrome is brought on by the Dobrava-Belgrade virus, and in North and South America, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is brought on by Sin Nombre virus and Andes virus — all hantaviruses. Sin Nombre virus was first found in New Mexico in 1993.
Little is thought concerning the ecology of hantaviruses in wildlife besides that the pathogen is unfold to people by inhalation of aerosolized excreta, urine, or saliva from asymptomatic rodent hosts, and it may be deadly in people.
The Virginia Tech group used knowledge from the Nationwide Science Basis’s Nationwide Ecological Observatory Community program to realize a greater understanding of hantavirus circulation in its sylvatic cycle — the pathogen’s life cycle in wildlife — by analyzing the environmental influences and geographical distribution of the rodent hosts. This system collected and examined 14,004 blood samples from 49 species at 45 subject websites throughout the USA from 2014-19.
New Hosts, New Insights
“In North America, Peromyscus maniculatus, the deer mouse, is the commonest service however our examine additionally revealed that different rodent species have a better prevalence of hantavirus, which modifications the present paradigm in hantavirus circulation in wildlife,” stated Paansri, whose mentor Affiliate Professor Luis E. Escobar, led the examine and is an affiliate with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “This new info is predicted to assist us perceive the place and when hantavirus is more than likely to happen, which is essential for predicting outbreaks and informing public well being officers.”
The invention of six new rodent species of hantavirus hosts is important. A few of these newly found hosts inhabit areas the place conventional hosts, such because the deer mouse or the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus), are absent, which means they may very well be potential reservoirs of the virus in new or neglected areas.
“This expands our understanding of the essential biology of the virus and exhibits that the virus is extra adaptable than beforehand believed,” Paansri stated. “This has direct implications for surveillance methods and threat assessments and may also help clarify some circumstances of hantavirus in people the place the primary reservoir is absent or uncommon.”
Along with increasing the identified host species, the researchers have been in a position to achieve a greater understanding of seasonal developments and results of seasonal climate shifts. For instance, hotter winters and elevated precipitation can improve rodent populations and drier circumstances can facilitate the era of contaminated mud containing particulates from rodent excrement and saliva, growing the danger of transmission to people.
The Position of Local weather Change
“Local weather change may cause inhabitants will increase or distributional shifts of rodents, altering the epidemiology of hantavirus,” Paansri stated. “These fluctuations can result in extra frequent rodent-human interactions and improve the possibility of spillover. We discovered some proof that rodent demography and hantavirus prevalence will be predicted months upfront.”
The precise variety of human circumstances of hantavirus infections is essentially unknown, based on Paansri, as a result of many infections stay silent, which means the contaminated particular person might not develop any signs or the signs may mirror different ailments, such because the frequent chilly or influenza.
The researchers plan to additional discover the extent to which climatic variations affect hantavirus transmission in wildlife and in people.
“We consider that many classes realized from this examine will be generalized to different wildlife ailments, contemplating that their distribution is international,” Paansri stated.
Reference: “Hantavirus in rodents in the USA: Temporal and spatial developments and report of recent hosts” by Francisca Astorga, Abdelghafar Alkishe, Paanwaris Paansri, Gabriel Mantilla and Luis E. Escobar, 16 March 2025, Ecosphere.
DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.70209
