Asia & Pacific
The hantavirus infection often causes symptoms that are also seen in other illnesses, which potentially make the disease to be misdiagnosed as other ‘milder’ diseases, health experts have said.
Test tubes labelled “Hantavirus positive“ are held in this illustration taken on May 7. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic)
As early diagnosis may be difficult to determine whether someone is infected by hantavirus, experts urge health workers to look thoroughly at a patient’s history, including potential rodent exposure and history of travel to areas where outbreaks happen.Among the early symptoms of hantavirus infections are fever and headache, which look a lot like other febrile or respiratory infections such as influenza and COVID-19, infectious disease specialist Lim Poh Lian of Singapore’s Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) said.
She added clinicians should obtain a thorough patient history, with special attention to possible rodent exposure, occupational and environmental risks, travel history and contact with known cases in areas where hantavirus happens.
