Prof. Iva Hristova, director of Bulgaria’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said there is currently no verified reason for concern over hantavirus cases reported in the region, including recent claims from Romania. She noted that laboratory confirmation is still pending and stressed that unverified reports can later be withdrawn once testing is completed.
She underlined that the suspected Romanian case has not been confirmed by laboratory results, with samples still under analysis. According to her, such preliminary reports are not unusual in epidemiological practice and may later be disproven. “There is no laboratory confirmation of the hantavirus case reported by the Romanian authorities,” she said, adding that conclusions should not be drawn before final test results are available.
Hristova also rejected assumptions linking the situation to infections acquired outside Europe, arguing that the patient in question had no travel history to South America, where different hantavirus variants circulate. In her view, this further reduces the likelihood of the reported diagnosis being accurate.
She explained that hantavirus strains found in Bulgaria and parts of Europe differ significantly from those associated with more severe forms of the disease elsewhere in the world. According to her, these local variants have a different clinical profile and considerably lower mortality. The virus is primarily transmitted through contact with rodent excretions in specific environments and does not spread between humans, she said.
