Hunter survives severe infection
Rare lung disease surfaces
By MATT SMITH
Ottaway News Service

ALBANY – A very rare, but frequently deadly disease that has been diagnosed in New York state only two times before has been contracted in Sullivan County.
State health officials disclosed Friday that a Pennsylvania man living at a hunting camp in western Sullivan County was diagnosed in mid-January with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, an unusual but extremely severe lung infection that kills nearly half its victims.
"It's a very nasty virus," said state Health Department spokeswoman Kristine Smith.
The state's two previous cases, both of which occurred in Suffolk County in 1994 and 1995, claimed the lives of a college student and a young landscaper.
But the man who contracted the disease in Sullivan County survived after being hospitalized in Pennsylvania.
"This gentleman is very fortunate," said Smith, adding that the virus, which is contracted by exposure to rodent droppings, urine or saliva, cannot be fought by any type of drug treatment.
"Your body either fights it off or it doesn't," she said. "You'll either survive or you won't."
Citing state patient confidentiality laws, health officials in Albany and Sullivan County refused to identify the Pennsylvania man, or even say what area of the state he is from.
Sullivan County Government spokesman Glenn Pontier said the man had been staying at a camp in Fremont, in Sullivan County, describing its location as being "in the middle of nowhere. It's real backwoods."
Because the disease is so rare, Pontier said there is no reason for widespread panic. But, health officials also said that because the illness could strike anywhere, it's important the public be educated.
Health officials said the man moved into the camp in October and became ill in mid-January.
Interviews conducted with the patient in Pennsylvania determined that, while in Sullivan County, he handled, without gloves, a number of rodents that he had trapped inside his cabin.
Smith said state officials on Thursday completed the trapping of mice and collection of rodent specimens around the camp.
The mice will then be tested in Albany at the state Health Department laboratory so that scientists can identify the particular strain of the disease.
Since the Center for Disease Control began tracking hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in 1993, 200 cases have been identified throughout the country.
Hantavirus was first discovered in the west.
The time between exposure and illness varies from three days to six weeks, health officials said.
Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
A cough and shortness of breath may also develop due to fluid building up in the lungs, sometimes becoming so severe that it leads to respiratory failure.
"This is a very serious illness," Smith said. "And it's not the kind of disease that only capitalizes on people that already have a compromised immune system."

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