https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6628555/WHO-warns-deadly-outbreak-rat-borne-hantavirus-Argentina.htmlNearly a dozen people have died in a rat-borne disease outbreak in Argentina.
Hantavirus has infected at least 29 people in the South American country, a majority of them female, and it has killed 11 of them so far, authorities say.
Earlier this month a judge ordered 85 people to stay in their homes to stop the virus, believed to have first broken out at a party, from spreading.
Although rare among people, hantavirus cannot be cured and kills up to 50 per cent of people who catch it.
'Potential human-to-human transmission is currently under investigation,' the World Health Organization said.
The outbreak of the virus, spread by rats and other rodents, is happening in the remote town of Epuyén in the Chubuta province, around 900 miles (1450km) south-west of Buenos Aires.
Hantavirus affects the lungs, causing flu-like symptoms to begin with, and is usually spread by contact with the droppings or saliva of infected animals.
More serious symptoms can appear with four to 10 days and include the lungs filling with fluid, causing coughing and shortness of breath.
One survivor described the sensation as feeling like 'a tight band around my chest and a pillow over my face,' according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Epuyén's outbreak began in October 2018, and the 29 lab-confirmed cases so far happened between then and January 20, 2019.
Some 50 per cent of the patients' symptoms happened within the past three weeks, and 59 per cent of them have been women or girls.
The first person to become infected is thought to have caught it from an animal then attended a party in Epuyén, after which another six people developed symptoms.
A local judge recently ordered 85 residents of the remote town, which has a population of around 3,000, not to leave their homes for at least 30 days.
Hmm, mostly infecting women. Is it not normally spread from person to person? I caught it once from my douchebag friend whose house was infested with rats. It's pretty gnarly.
If the stats are true, it would be a great bioweapon.
Is this the one you can catch from beer cans rats have been on?