Rats and mice are known to carry many diseases. These diseases can spread to people directly, through handling of rodents; contact with rodent feces (poop), urine, or saliva (such as through breathing in air or eating food that is contaminated with rodent waste); or rodent bites.
Some mice and rats can carry harmful diseases, such as HPS, Leptospirosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, plague, and typhus. The best way to protect you and your family from these diseases is to keep mice and rats out of your home. containers with tight lids.
Diseases are mainly spread to people from rodents when they breathe in contaminated air. CDC recommends you NOT vacuum (even vacuums with a HEPA filter) or sweep rodent urine, droppings, or nesting materials. These actions can cause tiny droplets containing viruses to get into the air.
Bites and direct contact through broken skin can also cause an infection. Approximately 5 percent of common house mice carry the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, but even other domesticated rodents, such as hamsters, can become carriers due to being infected by wild mice.
Early symptoms include fatigue, fever and muscle aches, especially in the large muscle groups—thighs, hips, back, and sometimes shoulders. These symptoms are universal. There may also be headaches, dizziness, chills, and abdominal problems, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.
The risk of acquiring hantavirus is extremely rare, even among people who are consistently exposed to mice and other rodents. The majority of exposures (70%) occur around the home. Hantavirus poses no significant health risk to WSU employees provided that simple precautions are followed.
Hantavirus: Once thought to be rare this disease has been identified in rodents across Australia.
Native Australian rodents (for example Hopping Mice) pose little or no threat to public health and should be left alone as they are protected species. However introduced rodents may infest residential and agricultural areas and carry disease.
House mice may be cute and cuddly, but they are a real health hazard. Their feces and saliva can spread bacteria, contaminate food sources, and give you allergic reactions. Their dry fecal matter can be harmful if breathed in.
There are two main things that can attract mice and rats to your house – food and shelter. If you don't tidy up properly and there's food waste on the floor or surfaces, rodents are going to love it! Rats and mice also need shelter, particularly during winter to avoid the worst of the cold.
Anyone who comes into contact with rodents that carry hantavirus is at risk of HPS. Rodent infestation in and around the home remains the primary risk for hantavirus exposure. Even healthy individuals are at risk for HPS infection if exposed to the virus.
The virus may remain infectious for 2 to 3 days at room temperature. Exposure to sunlight will decrease the time of viability and freezing temperatures will increase the time that the virus remains infectious.
Hantavirus is spread from wild rodents, particularly mice and rats, to people. The virus, which is found in rodent urine, saliva, and feces (poop), can be easily released in the air in confined spaces when disturbed by rodents or human activities, such as sweeping or vacuuming.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses found worldwide. In the United States, deer mice and other wild rodents can shed hantavirus in their urine, droppings, and saliva. People can become infected when they breathe in contaminated air.
Mice do not generally bite (unless handled), so that is not the risk. The biggest problem that turns them from a nuisance to a danger are the health risks they bring with them from diseases and parasites. Mice can contaminate food and food surfaces.
Mice can be kept away by using the smells of peppermint oil, cinnamon, vinegar, citronella, ammonia, bleach, and mothballs.
As for the lights inside your house, it is not an effective mice deterrent. This is because they can easily look for dark areas to hide inside houses until such time as all lights are turned off. While the lights are on, they can hide inside walls, crawl spaces, attics, and ceilings.
Symptoms: Fever, vomiting, headache, muscle pain, joint pain or swelling, rash. Treatment: Seek medical assistance immediately, as antibiotics or different treatment needs to be prescribed. The disease has been known to lead to serious consequences if untreated, such as internal organs' infections.
Infection with hantaviruses causing HFRS and NE affect the kidneys and can last from three days to three months for complete recovery. Symptoms may begin suddenly and include: fever. intense headache.
Mice have been known to spread the following diseases: Salmonella and Listeria – which lead to food poisoning and tummy bugs. Worms – this leads to poor health.
House mice do not carry hantavirus. Other wild mice, like deer mice, can vector hantavirus, but are most often found in rural areas, the desert, and mountains and rarely invade inhabited human homes.
Previous observations of patients that develop HPS from New World Hantaviruses recover completely. No chronic infection has been detected in humans. Some patients have experienced longer than expected recovery times, but the virus has not been shown to leave lasting effects on the patient.
HPS is more common in South America than in North America. Cases have been identified in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia. Andes virus causes HPS in Argentina and Chile and is the only hantavirus known to have been transmitted from person to person.