Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of a group of viruses carried by rodents that cause epidemic hemorrhagic fever and severe respiratory infections in humans.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun virology Any virus of the genus Hantavirus, transmitted by aerosolized rodent excreta or rodent bites

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After the Hantaan, River, South Korea (near which Westerners were first infected by the virus in the 1950s).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the name of the Hantan River in South Korea, via the genus name Hantavirus.

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Examples

  • When a rare microbe called the hantavirus killed 34 people in the West last year, it was easy, if wrong, to write it off as "the Navajo virus."

    Hanta Goes East 2008

  • Diseases based on a zoonotic (animal-to-human) vector, including malaria and other killers such as hantavirus, require a nuanced understanding of the transmission cycle.

    Scientific American 2009

  • Rodent-borne diseases such as hantavirus, leptospirosis, bartonellosis and plague are likely common within many rodent populations in Canada.

    Progressive Bloggers Thoughts on Climate Change 2008

  • The family is staying with friends in the area while their house is cleaned and tested for more hantavirus particles, Ms. Godin said.

    Hantavirus Killed 35-Year-Old Man on Long Island Andrew Grossman 2011

  • There were 20 confirmed hantavirus cases nationwide in 2010—mostly in the western U.S., according to the department.

    Hantavirus Killed 35-Year-Old Man on Long Island Andrew Grossman 2011

  • I can see it now: We here in the Oval Office and our partners at WHO and in the CDC feel that there would be no elevated risk of exposure to illness were you suddenly to find yourself locked in a 737 with a bunch of terminal ebola, plague, hantavirus, and flu patients, while crates of lab rats and rhesus macaques are turned loose to bite everyone's ankles.

    My Tail's Not In A Curl Over Swine Flu 2009

  • I can see it now: We here in the Oval Office and our partners at WHO and in the CDC feel that there would be no elevated risk of exposure to illness were you suddenly to find yourself locked in a 737 with a bunch of terminal ebola, plague, hantavirus, and flu patients, while crates of lab rats and rhesus macaques are turned loose to bite everyone's ankles.

    My Tail's Not In A Curl Over Swine Flu 2009

  • Scientists dusted deer mice with colorful powders to track the spread of hantavirus.

    psychedelic hanta mice | clusterflock 2009

  • Over the past seven years, Scary Scavo has released a rat in her home to force Tom to clean up — way to expose the family to the hantavirus, hon — screwed him out of a promotion, and hired her secretary to kidnap the twins...

    Watercooler: Lynette Scavo is the Worst of the Housewives 2011

  • Mr. Hartstein's death is just the second confirmed case of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in New York since 1995, according to the state Department of Health.

    Hantavirus Killed 35-Year-Old Man on Long Island Andrew Grossman 2011

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