title: Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome: the new American hemorrhagic fever.
abstract: The recognition of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) after the investigation of a cluster of unexplained respiratory deaths in the southwestern United States during the spring of 1993 showcased our ability to recognize new and emerging diseases, given the correct juxtaposition of a new clinical entity with circumscribed epidemiologic features that are analyzed with novel diagnostic methods. In less than a decade, HPS has become established as a pan-American zoonosis due to numerous viruses maintained by sigmodontine rodents with rodent- and virus-specific epidemiologic profiles. The classical features of the syndrome-acute febrile illness associated with prominent cardiorespiratory compromise after direct contact or inhalation of aerosolized rodent excreta-has been extended to include clinical variants, including disease with frank hemorrhage, that have confirmed that this syndrome is a viral hemorrhagic fever. Efforts are under way to refine prevention strategies, to understand the pathogenesis of the shock, and to identify therapeutic modalities.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Ali S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Khan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006476:Orthohantavirus / Q000472:pathogenicity; D018804:Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000821:virology; D006478:Hemorrhagic Fever, American / Q000209:etiology* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D051381:Rats; D029261:Sin Nombre virus / Q000472:pathogenicity