Hantavirus found in over 30 small mammal species in New Mexico

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | April 5, 2025 | Cathy Cook

[CedarDave]

Hantavirus isn’t just in deer mice, according to a new peer-reviewed study from the University of New Mexico, which found the virus in a quarter of more than 1,400 small mammals tested across the state.

Hantavirus is a rare but often serious rodent-borne illness, which first reared its head in the United States in the Four Corners region in 1993. From 1993 through 2022, New Mexico had 122 human cases and 52 deaths — more than anywhere else in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The illness recently made international headlines for causing the death of Betsy Arakawa, a Santa Fe businesswoman and renowned actor Gene Hackman’s wife. The couple’s remains were found Feb. 26 in their Santa Fe home.

Deer mice were identified in the 1990s as the primary carrier of hantavirus in New Mexico. The most common strain of hantavirus in the U.S. can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which kills approximately 35% of people who contract it. People often catch hantavirus from breathing in aerosolized rodent feces or being bitten or scratched by an infected rodent. The virus cannot be passed from person to person.

Research in the 1990s identified hantavirus genes in other rodents, and the CDC warns deer mice, rice rats, cotton rats and white-footed mice can all spread it.

But the new study shows that other rodent species, including ground squirrels, chipmunks, gophers, rats and house mice, can grow the virus and shed it — suggesting they could be capable of spreading the illness to people.

“Live virus can be isolated from many rodent species, so it’s not just spillover, where they just kind of get infected and it goes away. They can actually shed live virus,” author Steven Bradfute, an associate professor at UNM’s Department of Internal Medicine, said.

[CedarDave]

New Mexico is also known as the land of the flea and the home of the plague. Santa Fe also has the New Mexico version of the serious Democratic Spenditis virus several weeks each year. Still want to move here?

[irishjuggler]

Advice to denizens of New Mexico... own a cat or two.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

"the CDC warns deer mice, rice rats, cotton rats and white-footed mice can all spread it."

Don't forget the Demorats.

[Inyo-Mono]

Three people have died of Hantavirus in the last month in the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes, CA.

[CedarDave]

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[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember the 1960s when people were dying from swimming in the Mammoth Hot Springs. Something is always going to try to kill you.

[chajin]

Wasn’t it the hantavirus that decimated the indigenous in central America and the American east coast in the 1500s, making it easy for Europeans to colonize Mexico/Florida up to the empty towns of Virginia?

[Tijeras_Slim]

The last couple people who contracted plague here had the fleas carried in by their cats. We’re plague central where I am.

[Inyo-Mono]

I remember that too, bacteria as I recall.

[TheThirdRuffian]

And ignore warnings about “unsafe” rodent poison.

Hanta has historically wiped out major civilizations in the desert SW.

I have on my ranch an entire cave settlement that just died about 1500 years ago, according to the UNM experts who looked at it. (No it’s not on maps to avoid treasure hunters. My grandfather stumbled on it looking for the source of a seasonal spring.)

[BarbM]

Today I helped clean out the “old convent” on my church property. As I was sweeping up the dust, I kept hoping that there wasn't any of that “disease found in NM from the mice”.

Now Barbara from Minnesota has the mouse turd dust fear. great. just great. /s I couldn't remember the name: huntavirus.

[9422WMR]

Don’t forget those hanta-hatch peppers. They sell them all over the place now…

[central_va]

Don't tell Fauci about this virus because he will weaponize it.

[CedarDave]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/rare-virus-killed-gene-hackmans-wife-linked-3-deaths-california-town-rcna199855