Prevention and Treatment
There is no known antiviral treatment, but natural recovery from the virus is possible. Patients with suspected hantavirus are usually admitted to hospital and given oxygen to help them breathe. As the virus can be transmitted by rodent saliva, excretia, and bites, control of rats and mice in areas frequented by humans is key for disease prevention. General prevention can be accomplished by disposing of rodent nests, sealing any cracks and holes in homes where mice or rats could get in, setting up traps, laying down poisons or using natural predators such as cats in the home.
Leptospirosis causes similar symptoms and is also carried by rodent vectors, but it is due to a bacterial spirochete rather than a virus. Presumptive treatment of leptospirosis with penicillin (and other) antibiotics is often started for severe symptoms when a diagnostic dilemma between the two diseases is encountered.
Read more about this topic: Hantavirus
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