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A young California man died from the same rare rodent-linked virus that killed Gene Hackman’s wife in February — with health officials discovering rat droppings at his workplace following his untimely death, according to a report. Rodrigo Becerra, 26, had fallen seriously ill and was prescribed antibiotics the night before he was found convulsing in his Mammoth Lakes home, where he perished from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare infectious disease linked to rodents, on March 6, his family told SFGATE. Becerra, who was just three days shy of his birthday when he died, worked as a bell hop at Mammoth...

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...

A February 27 autopsy of Gene Hackman reveals the 95-year-old Oscar winner died of a combination of “advanced Alzheimer’s disease” and severe heart disease, the Santa Fe Medical Examiner announced today.“It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 17,” Dr. Heather Jarrell said in a press conference with Santa Fe Sherif Adan Mendoza and other county officials. “He was in very poor health,” Dr. Jarrell also noted of Hackman, adding that there was evidence that he hadn’t eaten for a number of days. Ms. Arakawa is assumed to have died on or around February 11, officials estimated.

Gene Hackman lived with his dead wife’s body for a full week before succumbing to complications from heart problems and advanced Alzheimer’s disease, officials said Friday as they revealed heartbreaking details of the legendary actor’s death. His longtime love, Betsy Arakawa, died of Hantavirus, a rare flu-like disease linked to rats, likely on Feb. 11, the New Mexico officials said. The “French Connection” star, meanwhile, is believed to have died seven days later. Hackman, 95, who had late-stage Alzheimer’s disease likely died roughly a week after his wife from hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and from Alzheimer’s, Jarrell said. He...

Hantavirus is a rare but highly fatal virus, federal health officials say. Authorities said Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of Alzheimer’s and heart failure a week after his wife died of hantavirus, a rare viral infection. Authorities initially ruled out foul play after the bodies were discovered Feb. 26 in the couple’s Santa Fe home, while a bottle of pills was discovered next to the body of his wife, Betsy Arakawa. Immediate tests for carbon monoxide poisoning also tested negative. Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza and other officials announced the development in a news conference in New Mexico,...

Authorities revealed Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease and showed severe signs of Alzheimer’s disease a full week after his wife died of hantavirus in their home. The rare but deadly virus is most commonly spread through breathing in contaminated air. Since the end of 2022, 864 cases of hantavirus disease have were reported in the United States since surveillance began in 1993. Advertisement Hantaviruses can infect and cause serious diseases in people worldwide, according to the CDC. People get hantavirus from contact with rodents like rats and mice, especially when exposed to their urine, droppings, and...

After the COVID-19 pandemic, we're all a little wary of biosecurity hazards, and the news out of Australia today isn't too comforting. In 2021, 323 vials containing samples of deadly viruses went missing from a lab in Queensland, Australia. The breach wasn't discovered until 2023, and for whatever reason—it sounds like red tape — an investigation is just now underway, over a year later. Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced the news on Monday. [snip] ...a statement: "I want to stress that there have been no public health incidents linked to these materials, so we have no evidence so far of...

Abstract: The English sweating sickness caused five devastating epidemics between 1485 and 1551, England was hit hardest, but on one occasion also mainland Europe, with mortality rates between 30% and 50%. The Picardy sweat emerged about 150 years after the English sweat disappeared, in 1718, in France. It caused 196 localized outbreaks and apparently in its turn disappeared in 1861. Both diseases have been the subject of numerous attempts to define their origin, but so far all efforts were in vain. Although both diseases occurred in different time frames and were geographically not overlapping, a common denominator could be what...

WTH is going on in Gallup, NM? The story doesn't shed any light on it. It only brings up more questioins. Is this a small test run for marshal law, state wide in lefty states? Is this a trial ballooon for blue states? What?

March 25 (UPI) -- A man in China has died after testing positive for the hantavirus, according to Chinese state media. Global Times reported the patient, a migrant worker from southwestern Yunnan Province, died while traveling on a chartered bus to Shandong Province for work on Monday. There is more than one strain of hantavirus, some more harmful than others, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no approved cure or vaccine against hantaviruses in the United States. An inoculation may be available in China. The group of diseases is spread primarily among rodents, and...

The emergence of a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) illustrates that coronaviruses (CoVs) may quiescently emerge from possible animal reservoirs and can cause potentially fatal disease in humans, as previously recognized for animals. In China a virus transmitted from rats re-emerged, it’s not confirmed if this is a new strain of the virus. A man from China’s Yunnan province tested positive for Hantavirus on Monday. He died while on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus, China’s state-run Global Times reported. 32 other people have been tested, the report added. Social media is in panic...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Health officials are investigating how a rare rat virus called the Seoul virus infected eight people in Wisconsin and Illinois. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says all eight people had direct contact with rats at Illinois and Wisconsin ratteries, which are rat-breeding facilities.

Health officials have reported a fourth New Mexico death from Hantavirus this year, making 2016 among the deadliest since the viral illness first appeared here in 1993. A 20-year-old Torrance County woman has died of Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – the state’s sixth reported case this year, the New Mexico Department of Health announced Thursday. “The messaging is, (Hantavirus) is still here and you still have to take precautions,” said Dr. Paul Ettestad, the department’s public health veterinarian. Hantavirus infection is transmitted by infected rodents through urine, droppings or saliva. People can contract the disease when they breathe in aerosolized virus....

California public health officials have tested 100 workers at Yosemite National Park to determine whether they were exposed to the deadly mouse-borne hantavirus. Nine people who spent time at the park this year have been infected with the rare virus, the majority after staying at the “Signature” cabins in Curry Village. Three of them died. KTVU-TV Oakland said 100 park workers submitted to voluntary testing on Wednesday and they have been ordered not to discuss the testing.

(Santa Fe) -- The New Mexico Department of Health confirmed today a case of plague in a 78-year-old man from Torrance County who is currently hospitalized in stable condition. This is the first human case of plague in New Mexico this year and in the United States. An environmental investigation will take place at the man’s home to look for ongoing risk to others in the surrounding area. “The Department of Health takes action when a plague case occurs to ensure the safety of the immediate family, neighbors, and health care providers,” said Department of Health Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Catherine...

An 8-year-old New Mexico boy has died and his 10-year-old sister was hospitalized after both contracted bubonic plague, the first recorded human plague cases in the nation so far this year. Plague is generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas, but also can be transmitted by direct contact with infected animals, including rodents, rabbits and pets. Symptoms of the bubonic form of the plague in humans include fever, chills, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea and swollen lymph nodes in the groin, armpit or neck areas. Pneumonic plague, which is an infection of the lungs, can include severe cough, difficulty...

One day last October, Eric York lugged the carcass of an adult mountain lion from his truck and laid it carefully on a tarp on the floor of his garage. The female mountain lion had a bloody nose, but her hide bore no other signs of trauma. York, a biologist at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, found the big cat lying motionless near the canyon’s South Rim. He was determined to learn why she died. Because the park lacks a forensics lab, he did the postmortem in his garage, in a village of about 2,000 park employees. Epidemic experts...

Health department recommends residents take precautions Public-health officials are urging residents to take precautions to avoid hantavirus. Four cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome have already been reported in 2008, with one resulting in a fatality. The most recent cases were confirmed last week in Delta and Dolores counties. Two previous cases of hantavirus were reported in Kiowa County in February and Fremont County in early May. The patient in Kiowa County died. "This year's heavy snowpack has provided moisture for ample vegetation that provides food for rodents, and often results in a large jump in both mouse populations and infection...

Associated Press HELENA n The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services says a Big Horn County man has died of hantavirus. The agency says it was the first death this year due to hantavirus. The name of the 64-year-old man was not released Friday. He died earlier this week. Montana has had eight reported hantavirus deaths since 1993. The last was in January 2007. In total, the state has had 29 reported infections since 1993. Hantavirus is contracted by inhaling airborne particles from the droppings of deer mice. Symptoms may include fever, vomiting, muscle and body aches and...

MISSOULA, Mont. — First came the knapweed. Then came the gall fly. And now the mice population is exploding — the mice that carry hantavirus. In a classic case of unintended ecological consequences, an attempt to control an unwanted plant has exacerbated a human health problem. Spotted knapweed, a European plant, is a tough, spindly scourge that has spread across hills and mountainsides across the West. In Montana alone, one of the worst-hit states, it covers more than four million acres. In the 1970's, biologists imported a native enemy of knapweed, the gall fly. The insect lays eggs inside the...