| Captured from the Global Times |
By Park Si-soo
China has confirmed the outbreak of hantavirus, sparking fears on social media of another coronavirus-like pandemic.
One person died of the rodent-carried infection on Monday, the Global Times, a state-controlled Chinese publication, reported.
"A person from Yunnan Province died while he was on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus on Monday," the publication tweeted, along with a photo of someone being screened for COVID-19. "He tested positive for #hantavirus. The other 32 people on the bus were tested."
Hantavirus is a rare virus that infects humans through dust contaminated by the saliva, urine or feces of a rodent. It causes a disease that attacks the heart and kills about 36-40 percent of patients, but it doesn't spread from person to person.
Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headaches, coughing, nausea and vomiting. Some patients can develop severe or life-threatening symptoms and it can take up to six weeks from the time of exposure for symptoms to appear.