An Ontario woman thought to have died from pneumonia last winter actually died from hantavirus, Health Canada officials confirmed last week.
The 48-year-old housewife from a small rural community in central Ontario is the first person in that province to die from hantavirus, said Bev Middleton, health protection inspector for the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit.
The family has asked not be identified to protect other family members.
Remains a mystery
Hantavirus is a rare pulmonary disease. It’s caught by breathing air infected with the virus carried in deer mice feces and urine. Later, mice caught in a 10-kilometre radius from the home tested negative for hantavirus.
No one knows how the woman caught the disease.
During the autopsy in February the pathologist noticed some unusual lung tissue, leading to suspicions of hantavirus, said Middleton.
The virus was confirmed at a London, Ont. hospital and again this week at the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control in Ottawa.
