Long-term studies of hantavirus reservoir populations in the southwestern United States: rationale, potential, and methods

Emerg Infect Dis. 1999 Jan-Feb;5(1):95-101. doi: 10.3201/eid0501.990111.

Abstract

Hantaviruses are rodent-borne zoonotic agents that cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Asia and Europe and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in North and South America. The epidemiology of human diseases caused by these viruses is tied to the ecology of the rodent hosts, and effective control and prevention relies on a through understanding of host ecology. After the 1993 HPS outbreak in the southwestern United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated long-term studies of the temporal dynamics of hantavirus infection in host populations. These studies, which used mark-recapture techniques on 24 trapping webs at nine sites in the southwestern United States, were designed to monitor changes in reservoir population densities and in the prevalence and incidence of infection; quantify environmental factors associated with these changes; and when linked to surveillance databases for HPS, lead to predictive models of human risk to be used in the design and implementation of control and prevention measures for human hantavirus disease.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Disease Reservoirs*
  • Ecology*
  • Hantavirus Infections / epidemiology
  • Hantavirus Infections / transmission
  • Hantavirus Infections / veterinary*
  • Humans
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Muridae / physiology
  • Muridae / virology*
  • Population Density
  • Population Dynamics
  • Rodent Diseases / epidemiology*
  • Rodent Diseases / virology
  • Southwestern United States / epidemiology
  • Time Factors
  • Zoonoses / epidemiology