As the world is battling against the Coronavirus war and facing a disaster like never before in complete lockdown, a Chinese man died from hantavirus. The man was reportedly traveling by bus in the Yunan province when he suddenly died. Tests proved the presence of the deadly hantavirus and efforts are on to test the other 32 co-passengers.

What is Hantavirus?

While social media has been flooded with information that hantavirus is a newly found virus, it is actually not. The virus has been in existence already. Unlike the coronavirus, the hantavirus is not communicable from humans to humans but rather from rodents to humans according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If a person happens to touch the urine, saliva, feces or nesting materials of a rat or other rodents and then touch their mouth, nose or eyes the hantavirus can affect him.

The symptoms of hantavirus are

• Fever greater than 101◦F, chills, body aches, headaches.
• Nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain.
• New rash (faint red spots)
• A dry cough followed by rapid onset of breathing difficulty.

Though the symptoms are somewhat similar, from the reports, it is clear that citizens need not fear the hantavirus like the coronavirus that is on rampage affecting four lakh people worldwide with a death toll of 16,500 at the time of this writing.