About alberto de leon(Health and Nutrition Report)HNR4= http://www.insidebayarea.com/california/ci_21417807/yosemite-officials-say-1-700-visitors-may-have?source=pkg ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................It's a sad thing to happen that visitors and campers were not warned early enough and properly of the danger of exposure to hantavirus from the Yosemite National Park's infected deer mice... and obviously failed to widely distribute warnings until this week after the rare disease was linked to a second visitor's death ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Sandy Kleffman covers health. Contact her at 510-293-2478. Follow her at Twitter.com/skleffman...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Yosemite officials say 1,700 visitors may have been exposed to hantavirus
Posted: 08/28/2012 10:26:52 AM PDT
Updated: 08/28/2012 06:09:41 PM PDT
Click photo to enlarge
Curry Village in Yosemite National Park on Aug. 9, 2012. (Photo by Stacy Linkmeyer)
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Yosemite National Park was warned two years ago to alert campers
Yosemite officials say 1,700 visitors may have been exposed to hantavirus
Posted: 08/28/2012 10:26:52 AM PDT
Updated: 08/28/2012 06:09:41 PM PDT
Yosemite National Park was warned two years ago to alert campers to the threat of deer mice harboring the deadly hantavirus but failed to widely distribute warnings until this week after the rare disease was linked to a second visitor's death.
State health experts told Yosemite in 2010 it should train employees to deal with the danger and warn visitors after a camper became infected but survived the often fatal disease.
But although the park trained its employees to inspect cabins, keep out the rodents and clean up droppings, it did little to notify the 4 million people who visit its world-famous waterfalls and peaks of the threat from the mice.
"They know hantavirus is there. So I don't understand why they couldn't have foreseen this," said Giorgio Cosentino, a public health microbiologist and family friend of a 37-year-old Alameda County man who died from the hantavirus after staying in one of the park's tent cabins.
"The education can lead to saving lives," Cosentino said. " ... You can't guarantee from year-to-year that you're going to have a situation under control."
The park did not want to needlessly scare people, a park spokeswoman said.
Until the recent cases, "There was no reason to believe that (the risk) was higher here than anywhere else in the Sierra Nevada or New York City, for that matter," park ranger Jana McCabe said Tuesday. "Any time you have contact with rodents, there is a potential.
"In 2010,
million visitors and one visitor contracted hantavirus pulmonary syndrome," she said. "How do you balance the need to know and educate people with creating panic or fear?" Park service employees estimate the hantavirus exists in about 20 percent of the deer mice in the Sierra Nevada.
Until this year, only two known Yosemite visitors had become infected, one in 2000 and another in 2010. Both survived. They had stayed in Tuolumne Meadows in a higher elevation of the park.
The 2010 case involved a 54-year-old San Mateo County woman who spent three days in the hospital with abdominal pain, fever, nausea and shortness of breath.
She had visited Yosemite two weeks before her symptoms began and noted mouse feces on the table in her tent cabin, saw one or two live mice run across the floor, and had swept her cabin, according to a state report.
The recommendation to provide "staff and guests with information and supplies to safely clean and decontaminate cabins" appears in the 2010 annual report by the Vector-Borne Disease Section of the California Department of Public Health. A 2007 state report contains a similar recommendation.
The four cases this year involved people who stayed in a Signature Tent Cabin in Curry Village in mid-June.
One expert said she understands why park officials did not do more to alert the public before the latest cases surfaced. "It would put people at a level of alarm that wasn't justified," said Janet Foley, a professor in the department of veterinary medicine and epidemiology at UC Davis. She noted that many animals can harbor diseases, and notifying people about every possibility could interfere with their enjoyment of nature.
The hantavirus is found primarily in deer mice living in forested areas in the eastern Sierras, Foley noted. Deer mice have a distinct white underbelly and grey-brown backs. They are different from the predominantly grey-brown house mice common in the Bay Area and typically do not harbor the virus.
Alameda County Public Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis agreed. A recent state report reveals that just one of the 198 mice tested in the county from 2001 to 2010 had the virus, so "although there may be some risk, we don't think it's really high," Davis said.
Melanie Norall, a part-time health writer for El Camino Hospital, is among those anxiously watching for symptoms. Norall, who stayed in a privately owned cabin near Groveland just outside of the park during the last weekend in July, said she "woke up in the middle of the night and heard all these noises."
The next morning, she discovered that bags of peanuts in their suitcases had been chewed open. Looking around, she noticed what appeared to be mouse droppings on the windowsills and behind curtains.
"I don't know if they were running over our toothbrushes and water cups," she said. "The scary thing is that one-third of people die from this. It would have been nice to have been forewarned."
Sandy Kleffman covers health. Contact her at 510-293-2478. Follow her at Twitter.com/skleffman.
State health experts told Yosemite in 2010 it should train employees to deal with the danger and warn visitors after a camper became infected but survived the often fatal disease.
But although the park trained its employees to inspect cabins, keep out the rodents and clean up droppings, it did little to notify the 4 million people who visit its world-famous waterfalls and peaks of the threat from the mice.
"They know hantavirus is there. So I don't understand why they couldn't have foreseen this," said Giorgio Cosentino, a public health microbiologist and family friend of a 37-year-old Alameda County man who died from the hantavirus after staying in one of the park's tent cabins.
"The education can lead to saving lives," Cosentino said. " ... You can't guarantee from year-to-year that you're going to have a situation under control."
The park did not want to needlessly scare people, a park spokeswoman said.
Until the recent cases, "There was no reason to believe that (the risk) was higher here than anywhere else in the Sierra Nevada or New York City, for that matter," park ranger Jana McCabe said Tuesday. "Any time you have contact with rodents, there is a potential.
"In 2010,
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we received four million visitors and one visitor contracted hantavirus pulmonary syndrome," she said. "How do you balance the need to know and educate people with creating panic or fear?"
Park service employees estimate the hantavirus exists in about 20 percent of the deer mice in the Sierra Nevada.
Until this year, only two known Yosemite visitors had become infected, one in 2000 and another in 2010. Both survived. They had stayed in Tuolumne Meadows in a higher elevation of the park.
The 2010 case involved a 54-year-old San Mateo County woman who spent three days in the hospital with abdominal pain, fever, nausea and shortness of breath.
She had visited Yosemite two weeks before her symptoms began and noted mouse feces on the table in her tent cabin, saw one or two live mice run across the floor, and had swept her cabin, according to a state report.
The recommendation to provide "staff and guests with information and supplies to safely clean and decontaminate cabins" appears in the 2010 annual report by the Vector-Borne Disease Section of the California Department of Public Health. A 2007 state report contains a similar recommendation.
The four cases this year involved people who stayed in a Signature Tent Cabin in Curry Village in mid-June.
One expert said she understands why park officials did not do more to alert the public before the latest cases surfaced. "It would put people at a level of alarm that wasn't justified," said Janet Foley, a professor in the department of veterinary medicine and epidemiology at UC Davis. She noted that many animals can harbor diseases, and notifying people about every possibility could interfere with their enjoyment of nature.
The hantavirus is found primarily in deer mice living in forested areas in the eastern Sierras, Foley noted. Deer mice have a distinct white underbelly and grey-brown backs. They are different from the predominantly grey-brown house mice common in the Bay Area and typically do not harbor the virus.
Alameda County Public Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis agreed. A recent state report reveals that just one of the 198 mice tested in the county from 2001 to 2010 had the virus, so "although there may be some risk, we don't think it's really high," Davis said.
Melanie Norall, a part-time health writer for El Camino Hospital, is among those anxiously watching for symptoms. Norall, who stayed in a privately owned cabin near Groveland just outside of the park during the last weekend in July, said she "woke up in the middle of the night and heard all these noises."
The next morning, she discovered that bags of peanuts in their suitcases had been chewed open. Looking around, she noticed what appeared to be mouse droppings on the windowsills and behind curtains.
"I don't know if they were running over our toothbrushes and water cups," she said. "The scary thing is that one-third of people die from this. It would have been nice to have been forewarned."
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