Traveled to Yosemite National Park Recently?
The Moon Bow - Yosemite National Park
So you are back from a great vacation at Yosemite National Park in California. You had a wonderful vacation, and you stayed in these tents on the campgrounds. It’s been about 2 weeks since you came back but your 10-year-old daughter is not feeling well.
She is aching and has a low-grade fever. You tell her to rest and give her a couple of acetaminophen (Tylenol) . In spite of her treatment , she is not getting better and you continue to give her Tylenol. She now has a headache, is nauseous and starts vomiting. She is tired, wants to go to bed. Her belly hurts and does not want to eat or drink anything. She is getting weaker. Her pulse is low. You check the internet but cannot finds what she has. You think that she has a simple “cold” and that she will be getting better.
However, now she is sleepy, has trouble breathing, you decide now to take her to the emergency room, and they noticed that she has a whole bunch of small, red spots all over her skin. You notice that these spots are in her belly in the inside of her mouth and even on her eyelids. She is admitted to the hospital. She is receiving intravenous fluid as her blood pressure is dropping, and she is not going to pee. She is now transferred to the Pediatric intensive care unit and put on antibiotics.
In spite of aggressive treatment, she is getting worse. The health care provider notices that she has swollen nodes in her neck area and arm pits. They are now calling an infectious specialist who ask the surgeon to see what these lumps in her neck are all about. She is taken to the operating room and they get a sample of her node. They send it for further examination. The pathologist reports that what they see is evidence of the Hantavirus.
Unfortunately, she got worse, her lungs got filled with water and she got sicker and became unresponsive and passed away. When asked about any past travel, the parents mentioned that they were camping in Yosemite National Park in California. The doctors stipulated that most likely got contaminated from either the urine or the dust of rodents frequently found in this National Park.
Just like Gene Hackman’s Wife who recently passed away in New Mexico from the Hantavirus, although rare, this occurs when food is contaminated by mice urine or can be in the air from contaminated dust. This does not go from human to human [no human-to-human transmission] so no one else in this unfortunate family got sick or will get sick because of their daughter getting sick.
How to avoid getting Hantavirus: keep food in closed and secured containers, make sure your habitat is free of mice. What to do if you think you came into contact with contaminated food or dusty air that may have had mice droppings: get immediate care, tell your provider that you are worried about Hantavirus. The earlier you seek treatment the better your chances of survival.