As the coronavirus pandemic in China slows down, one person died from hantavirus in the region, another infectious disease, local media reported on Tuesday.
A person from southwestern Yunnan province passed away after contracting the virus, Chinese daily The Global Times reported.
“A person from Yunnan province died while on his way back to Shandong province for work on a chartered bus on Monday,” the newspaper tweeted.
It added that the bus had also screened 32 fellow passengers. Data on the outcomes of their experiments was not received.
The infectious disease first emerged in the United States in 1993. Rodents such as mice and rats pass it on to humans.
No human-to-human transmission of this virus was observed except for Argentina in 1996, when it was proposed that “hantavirus strains in South America can be transmitted from person to person,” according to the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention Center.
This development comes at a time when coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is raging across the world.
To date, COVID-19 has killed more than 17,000 people in 169 countries or territories.
Unlike symptoms of coronavirus that includes cough, fever, and trouble breathing, hantavirus in the body leads to tiredness, muscle aches, and headaches.