Copyright 1997

By: Chris Van Deelen  chrisv@nucleus.com

     I found the information to write up these diseases on a very interesting
and Informative web site called 'Outbreak'.  This site has an active outbreak
listing, plus information regarding some of the deadliest disease's known to
mankind.  If it wasn't for this web page, I would not have been able to create
this dreaded nasty to be used with the disease system I wrote up for The
Morrow Project.
     If interested, the address for the web site is listed below:

     www.outbreak.org/cgi-unreg/dynaserve.exe/index.html

Hantavirus
     Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a newly-described syndrome that is
characterized by a prodrome of fever, chills and myalgia, followed by the
abrupt onset of respiratory distress, often severe and often fatal. the
respiratory distress is caused by capillary leak syndrome, i.e., the leaking
of proteinaceous fluid from the blood vessels into the air sacs of the lungs
causing diffuse "whiteout" (resembling the syndrome known as adult respiratory
distress syndrome, ARDS) on chest X-ray. Mortality is about 40-50%. Death is
frequently associated with shock and cardiovascular instability, rather than
low oxygen saturation.

Hantavirus
     AE or SU-(E)-STR-2+2D20 Days-5-24 hours
     Pain, weakness, nausea.

Korean Hantavirus
     AE or SU-(E)-STR-2+2D20 Days 1-24 hours
     Pain, weakness, nausea.

     The defining symptoms are fever, severe myalgias (muscle aches, often
involving the back, buttocks and thighs), flank pain, fatigue, weakness, and
chills, followed after 1-7 days by severe respiratory distress (shortness of
breath) in HPS.  Nausea, vomiting and/or severe abdominal pain
     The incubation period/onset of symptoms for HFRS is 2-3 weeks range, 4
to 42 days.
     It is transmitted from rodents to man, generally via aerosols of
contaminated rodent excreta.  Occasionally hantaviruses are transmitted via
rodent bites.
     No human being is known to have transmitted any hantavirus to another
human being.
     There is no evidence for person-to-person spread of any hantavirus.
     There is no cure or vaccine.