| The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced a confirmed case of rodent-borne hantavirus hemorrhagic fever Monday, the third case of its kind in Taiwan this year. The patient is a 57-year-old fish vendor living in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, the CDC said in a statement. The statement said that the man sought medical treatment at a local clinic April 1 after developing a fever. Two days later, he was admitted to a hospital where he received further treatment for his persistent fever and other symptoms, including dizziness and muscle aches. The hospital later diagnosed him as having been infected with hantavirus, the CDC said. As of press time, no one else in the patient's family had developed symptoms suggesting hantavirus infection. Meanwhile, city health authorities captured seven brown rats and one house shrew around the places where the patient lives and works, with two of the rats testing positive for hantavirus, the CDC noted. "To reduce the risk of further transmission, the local health authority has implemented a number of rodent control measures within a 200-meter radius of the victim's residence and neighborhood," the statement said. According to CDC statistics, there have been three cases of hantavirus infection confirmed in the country since the beginning of the year. All three patients reside in Kaohsiung, with two of them coming from a family cluster. Although the latest case resides in a different village from the first two, their residences are only 400 meters apart, the CDC said. Hantavirus hemorrhagic fever is caused by hantaviruses, with rodents serving as the natural reservoir for the virus. It is transmitted from infected rodents to humans by inhalation of aerosolized particles from rodent excreta or a bite from an infected rodent. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, abdominal pain, lower back pain, nausea, vomiting, varying degrees of hemorrhagic manifestations and kidney involvement.rn |
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