Abstract | OBJECTIVE: DESIGN: Internet search engines, including Google®, Google Scholar®, Pub Med, Medline, and Ovid, were queried with the key words as search terms to examine the latest scientific articles on rodent-borne infectious disease outbreaks in the United States and worldwide to describe the epidemiology and presenting clinical manifestations and outcomes of LS and Hantavirus outbreaks. SETTING: Not applicable. PARTICIPANTS: Not applicable. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Rodent-borne infectious disease outbreaks following heavy rainfall and flooding disasters. RESULTS: Heavy rainfall encourages excessive wild grass seed production that supports increased outdoor rodent population densities; and flooding forces rodents from their burrows near water sources into the built environment and closer to humans. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare providers should maintain high levels of suspicion for LS in patients developing febrile illnesses after contaminated freshwater exposures following heavy rainfall, flooding, and even freshwater recreational events; and for Hantavirus-caused infectious diseases in patients with hemorrhagic fevers that progress rapidly to respiratory or renal failure following rodent exposures.
|
Authors | James H Diaz |
Journal | American journal of disaster medicine
(Am J Disaster Med)
Vol. 10
Issue 3
Pg. 259-67
( 2015)
ISSN: 1932-149X [Print] United States |
PMID | 26663308
(Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
|
Topics |
- Animals
- Communicable Disease Control
- Communicable Diseases
(epidemiology, therapy, transmission)
- Disasters
- Disease Outbreaks
(prevention & control, statistics & numerical data)
- Disease Vectors
- Floods
- Hantavirus Infections
(epidemiology, prevention & control, therapy, transmission)
- Humans
- Leptospirosis
(epidemiology, prevention & control, therapy, transmission)
- Rodentia
- United States
(epidemiology)
|