Purpose-built for physicians
Increased glucose may serve as a signal for worsening severity of hantavirus infection, and continuous glucose monitoring could help observe people exposed to the virus, according to a letter to the editor.
As Healio previously reported, 18 Americans were advised to remain in quarantine at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, through May 31 after being passengers on the MV Hondius cruise ship, where a hantavirus outbreak was linked to three deaths. After the outbreak, researchers from the Diabetes Technology Society and Sutter Health Research Institute conducted a literature review assessing trends between glucose levels and hantavirus infections. Results from the review were published in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology.
“Before we did the review, we didn’t know whether there was a link between hantavirus and elevated glucose, but we thought there might be, and it was worth looking into since there is so much interest,” David C. Klonoff, MD, FACP, FRCP (Edin), Fellow AIMBE, of Sutter Health Research Institute in Emeryville, California, told Healio. “What we found was, with the Old World hantavirus, there’s higher glucose and there’s damage to the islet cells.”
