Hantavirus outbreak prompts Yosemite campsite closures

A second hantavirus death has prompted partial closures of a popular Yosemite National Park campsite and warnings to 1,700 recent visitors as officials try to understand what is being characterized as an unprecedented outbreak of the disease.

After learning that a Pennsylvania visitor’s death was caused by hantavirus, Yosemite officials sent emails Monday evening to those who stayed in the “signature tent cabins” in Curry Village between mid-June and late August, said park spokesman Scott Gediman.

The fatality marked the third confirmed case of the rare rodent-borne disease linked to the park – last week, park officials said a 37-year-old San Francisco Bay Area man had died and a Los Angeles area woman in her 40s was recovering after being exposed to the virus. Park officials believe there may be a fourth case.

All four stayed separately at the signature tent cabins in June, Gediman said. Officials have traced the outbreak to deer mouse droppings in the area.

Repeated cases of hantavirus at the same location within a year is “very rare,” said Dr. Barbara Knust, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jana McCabe, a Yosemite park ranger, called the outbreak “unprecedented.”

Transmitted through urine, droppings or saliva of infected rodents, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome takes between one and six weeks to show in humans, officials said. The symptoms – fatigue, fever, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain – are often confused with the flu, Knust said, but can quickly worsen as one’s lungs begin to fill with fluid.

In general, Knust said, the virus is transmitted when people come in contact with an enclosed area that has been infested. The disease is not spread from human to human.