EPHRATA - The death of a farm worker in Grant County last month has been traced to hantavirus, health officials said.
The worker's name and hometown were not disclosed in a county Health Department announcement Thursday, but the agency's personal health services director, Peggy Grigg, said authorities were providing hantavirus prevention information to businesses and residents in the area where the worker lived.
The disease was virtually unknown in the United States before an outbreak in 1993 in the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Since then, Washington state has had 27 reported cases, nine of them fatal. One of the last deaths from hantavirus in the state was in Skagit County in 2003.
About 14 percent of the 1,000 deer mice that have been tested for hantavirus in Washington since 1993 have been carriers, according to Dr. John Grendon, public health veterinarian at the state Health Department.
Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer
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