|
|
From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) Subject: Re: Mouse borne disease question Date: 16 Aug 1993 15:28:42 -0700 Newspaper articles published on the subject in our area would disagree with you. First, the hantavirus doesn't appear to infect dogs or cats. But it is present and can become air-borne from the urine or feces of the contaminated rat. Therefore the cat or dog *could* bear virus on their paws or fur from playing with their kill (or they could have rubbed it off during their gleeful roll on the way home). However, rats in traps that have the hantavirus may urinate within the trap, and you handle it directly...The recommendations from the paper were negative for traps and lukewarm for cats/dogs. The best recommendation was to keep down the attractiveness of your home and environs to the mice in the first place, which means limiting living areas (cutting down vegetation that is near the house), and making sure there is little or no food to draw the mice. Deer mice as a species lives further from man than field mice, which is one small plus in this whole mess. The deer mice are small brown/red mice, whereas field mice are usually grey. The paper recommends, if any of your beasts brings home a trophy, that you handle it only from afar with a shovel or something. And don't go handling hunting animals -- the cat or the dog -- much at all. Of course, related articles point out that mice borne diseases similar to hantavirus may be much more widely contracted than we think. So maybe even grey mice aren't that harmless. I happen to like the barn owl ideas as well as the snake ideas (not likely you will cuddle up with either of those hunters), and since my horses don't like oat hay, I don't buy it and worry about attracting rodents with it. Rodents seem to steer clear of grass and alfalfa hays. Adrienne Regard From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) Subject: Re: Mouse borne disease question Date: 18 Aug 1993 08:20:14 -0700 In article <1993Aug16.214257.12326@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu (Sue Bishop) writes: >Hmmm, I spent eight days in the pulmonary care center of our local medical >center during the first week of June. I had some kind of infection/virus >that no one knew exactly what to do with. Finally, after massive IV >antibiotics and steroids, I was able to go home. Wonder if I had the >hantavirus? Well, the article I read said two other things: 1. That the fatality rate was 75%, so you may be a lucky individual. 2. That it was probably more widespread than the 'discovery' in Four Corners would indicate -- that other no-one-knew-exactly-what cases may well be Four Corners disease, but they just weren't conveniently clustered for doctors to begin noticing similarities. I sure *hope* you didn't have it. Glad to hear you are better! Adrienne Regard |
|
