Top 5 things to know about Hantavirus and how VIDO is helping reduce risk

As Canadians open garages, sheds, basements, and storage spaces after winter, they may also be exposing themselves to an often-overlooked health risk: hantavirus.

Hantaviruses are carried by rodents and can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a rare but often severe lung illness that can be fatal in about 30 to 40 per cent of cases. People can become infected by breathing in virus particles from rodent urine, droppings, or saliva that get stirred into the air during cleaning.

Here are five things to know this spring and how research at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) is helping reduce your risk.

1. Spring cleaning can raise the risk of exposure
Opening old boxes, sweeping dusty floors, or moving stored items in closed spaces can stir up contaminated dust and release virus particles into the air.

In Canada, hantaviruses are not known to spread from person to person. Instead, infection is usually linked to places where rodents have been active, especially enclosed areas left untouched over the winter. Hantavirus is an example of a zoonotic disease, meaning it spreads from animals to people.

Simple precautions can help lower the risk. Open doors and windows before entering, wear gloves and a well-fitted mask, and disinfect surfaces before sweeping or vacuuming.

Understanding how and where transmission happens is the first step in protecting yourself and your family.

2. Rodents carry the virus without getting sick

In North America, deer mice are the primary carriers of the virus that causes HPS. One of the biggest challenges in controlling hantavirus is that these animals show no signs of illness.

Unlike deer mice, people infected with hantavirus can become seriously ill, with symptoms that often begin like the flu, before progressing to coughing and shortness of breath. Because deer mice can carry and shed the virus throughout their lives without becoming sick, it can be difficult to detect where the virus is present or when people may be at risk.

3. VIDO researchers are studying how the virus survives in deer mice

Dr. Bryce Warner and his team at VIDO are studying how hantaviruses interact with the immune systems of rodent hosts, particularly deer mice. Their goal is to understand how the virus can remain in these animals without making them sick. This process is known as “asymptomatic persistence”.

“Understanding how the virus lives in its natural host and what key drivers lead to the virus leaving its host at different times is key to stopping it before it reaches people,” said Warner. “If we can understand and interrupt that cycle, we can reduce the risk of human infection at its source.”

This work is important because it helps researchers understand spillover, the process by which viruses move from animals into people.

To support this research, VIDO is establishing one of only a few deer mouse colonies in North America. This will allow scientists to study the virus and the animals’ immune responses in a controlled setting and build knowledge that could support long-term prevention.

4. Preventing hantavirus starts before people get sick

Public awareness and safe cleaning practices matter, but long-term prevention also means understanding how the virus continues circulating in rodent populations.

VIDO’s research takes a One Health approach, recognizing that human, animal, and environmental health are closely connected. By studying the virus in its natural hosts, researchers hope to reduce the chance of it reaching people in the first place.

5. Vaccines may become part of the solution

Alongside its foundational research, VIDO is also advancing hantavirus vaccine candidates.

These vaccines could one day help protect people from severe disease, especially those in higher-risk regions or occupations. Although cases are rare, hantavirus infection can be very serious, which makes preparedness important.

As spring cleaning begins, simple precautions can help lower your risk today. At the same time, researchers at VIDO are working to better understand hantavirus and to develop new ways to prevent severe illness.