Health Alerts

The NICD has reported an imported case of (Puumala virus) hantavirus haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in a businessman who had been working in Croatia. The man had visited horse stables in a rural location – a likely environment to find rodent hosts - before falling ill and a fellow visitor to the stables had subsequently been diagnosed with hantavirus. The May Communicable Disease Communique proposed that Europe’s rise in HFRS diagnosis over the past decade ‘warrant its consideration as a differential diagnosis, especially in travellers with suggestive clinical symptoms’. Read more.