Hantavirusn.
/ˈhantəˌvʌɪrəs/, U.S. /ˈhæn(t)əˌvaɪrəs/ Virology and Medicine.
A genus of spherical, enveloped, single-stranded RNA viruses (family Bunyaviridae) which can be transmitted to humans via the urine, faeces, and saliva of their natural rodent hosts, and typically cause either a haemorrhagic fever with nephritis or acute respiratory disease; (also hantavirus, hanta virus) a virus of this genus.
ΚΠ
1984 J. M. Dalrymple et al. in Arthropod-borne Virus Information Exchange 12 Mar. 158 A new genus (Hantavirus) has been proposed to accommodate Hantaan and related viruses... This combination of biochemical and serological techniques has established the shared and unique characteristics of these viruses and confirms the requirement for the newly proposed genus status of Hantaviruses.
1987 D. J. Weatherall et al. Oxf. Textbk. Med. (ed. 2) I. v. 133/2 No human disease has been identified in the United States, but two Hantaviruses named Prospect Hill and Girard Point have been isolated from wild rodents there.
1993 Washington Post 18 June a2/4 Last week, the CDC said it suspected a previously unknown strain of a ‘hantavirus’ in the epidemic in which victims typically come down with fever, headache and cough quickly followed by respiratory failure.
2000 A. Karlen Biogr. of Germ (2001) xxi. 136 The exchange continues today, as imported zebra mussels clog Northeastern waterways, the Korean hantavirus invades Baltimore, and Asian mudfish waddle down Florida's roads.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
ΚΠ
1985 Amer. Jrnl. Trop. Med. & Hygiene 34 810 A serosurvey of domestic rats was conducted in several South American cities between September 1982 and March 1983 for evidence of hantavirus infection.
1989 Q. Jrnl. Med. 73 941 This picture is virtually identical with that of nephropathia epidemica, a Hantavirus nephropathy observed in northern Europe.
1990 Lancet 18 Aug. 407/1 The term hantavirus disease (HVD) was proposed to encompass the clinical expression of the genus Hantavirus.
1993 Washington Post 18 June a2/4 Yesterday, the CDC said doctors confirmed existence of hantavirus disease in seven people, four of whom had died.
2001 N.Y. Times Mag. 19 Aug. 68/1 Another year, a hantavirus scare paralyzed me: I spent August armed with a spray bottle of bleach zapping..mouse droppings.
C2.
hantavirus pulmonary syndrome n. an acute, severe respiratory disease caused by various New World hantaviruses and characterized by influenza-like prodromal symptoms and rapidly progressive pulmonary oedema and interstitial pneumonitis, often leading to death.
ΚΠ
1993 Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Rep. 29 Oct. 816 A unique hantavirus has been identified as the cause of the outbreak of respiratory illness (hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS)) first recognized in the southwestern United States in May 1993.
1999 N.Y. Times 3 Oct. v. 9/2 The hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a respiratory disease, for which there is no cure, caused by sin nombre virus and carried by the common deer mouse.
2001 N. Jones Rough Guide Trav. Health ii. 326 In the Americas, hantavirus infection may cause a build-up of fluid on the lungs, known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1984