US officials sound worldwide alert for Yosemite hantavirus risk
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SAN FRANCISCO (REUTERS) - United States (US) health officials have sent warnings to 39 other countries that their citizens who stayed in Yosemite National Park tent cabins this summer may have been exposed to a deadly mouse-borne hantavirus, a park service epidemiologist said on Tuesday.
Of the 10,000 people thought to be at risk of contracting hantavirus pulmonary syndrome from their stays in Yosemite between June and August, some 2,500 live outside the US, Dr David Wong told Reuters in an interview.
Dr Wong said US Department of Health and Human Services officials notified 39 countries over the weekend, most of them in the European Union, that their residents may have been exposed to the deadly virus.
The lung disease has so far killed two men and sickened four other people, all US citizens, prompting the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue a health alert.
