European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

ORTHOHANTAVIRUS: ANOTHER CONTAGION NEMESIS ON A HUNT

*Pritam Bakshi, Tanistha Mumtaz Chatterjee, Dr. Dhrubo Jyoti Sen and Dr. Beduin Mahanti

ABSTRACT

Orthohantavirus is a genus of single-stranded, enveloped, negative-sense RNA viruses in the family Hantaviridae of the order Bunyaviral. Members of this genus may be called orthohantaviruses or simply hantaviruses. They normally cause infection in rodents, but do not cause disease in them. Human may become infected with hantaviruses through contact with rodent urine, saliva, or feces. Some strains cause potentially fatal diseases in humans, such as hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), also known as hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), while others have not been associated with known human disease. HPS (HCPS) is a "rare respiratory illness associated with the inhalation of aerosolized rodent excreta (urine and feces) contaminated by hantavirus particles." Human infections of hantaviruses have almost entirely been linked to human contact with rodent excrement; however, in 2005 and 2019, human-to-human transmission of the Andes virus was reported in South America. Hantavirus is named for the Hantan River area in South Korea where an early outbreak was observed, and was isolated in 1976 by Ho Wang Lee.

Keywords: Rodent-borne, Hantaviridae, virion, transcription-translation, glycosylation, co- evolution, ribavirin, nephropathia, epidemica.