Santa Cruz health officials urge caution after resident contracts rodent borne virus

A health alert in Santa Cruz County, tonight. A report this week of someone contracting a deadly disease… known as hantavirus.

It’s late April and it’s starting to get warm outside. The time of year people start to do their spring cleaning. But officials say, if you live in Santa Cruz County…you should be extra careful when cleaning up this year.

Hantavirus is a rare disease. The state has seen fewer than 80 cases in the past few decades. But officials suggest caution when it comes dealing with rodent droppings.

Dr. Arnold Leff a Health Officer in Santa Cruz says, “It’s basically a standard virus that for the most part infects rodents, mice, and rats, and is found in their urine and feces.”

In fact deer mice droppings can be fatal. A recent study shows that in some locations in California, up to 12% of the deer mice population can contain what’s known as hantavirus.”

And according to Santa Cruz resident, Mike Traya… Rodents in general are pretty common in Santa Cruz… he’s run into the problem himself. “Just watching them running across our living room and there was dropping all over the place. Then finally we got some live traps… then we were able
to get rid of them all.” – Traya

Most rodents don’t have the virus. But if you’re like Mike and see rodents running around, stay about 6 feet away.

“The important thing is if you are cleaning out an area that has it, that you wet it down
first with a bleach solution so it doesn’t aerosolized and get up in the air.” – Dr. Leff

Dr. Leff says the places you will most likely see the virus is in rural areas, or garages and sheds that have been neglected over the winter months. “We can support people who have the pulmonary syndrome or the lung syndrome, but we have recently had a case in the intensive care unit so it can be very serious. It’s supportive treatment, we don’t actually have any medicine that actually cures or treats the virus.