{"id":639452,"date":"2026-05-12T23:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/639452\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T23:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:16:10","slug":"state-officials-announce-first-potential-case-of-hantavirus-in-resident-living-in-northern-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/639452\/","title":{"rendered":"State officials announce first potential case of hantavirus in resident living in northern Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\" <\/a>An Illinois resident is suspected to be positive for the hantavirus but a different strain than the recent outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, health officials said Tuesday. | Photo: Stefan Brending \/ Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons)<\/p>\n

State health officials announced the first potential case of hantavirus of the year in a resident who is living in northern Illinois but say it is separate from the recent outbreak on the cruise ship.<\/p>\n

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) said in a statement on Tuesday that it is investigating the first potential hantavirus case in an Illinois resident.<\/p>\n

The case is not believed to be connected to the recent outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship.<\/p>\n

The resident lives in Winnebago County, has not travelled internationally and has not come in contact with individuals associated with the MV Hondius outbreak, according to the IDPH.<\/p>\n

They are suspected to have acquired a North American strain of the virus while cleaning a home where rodent droppings were present.<\/p>\n

The North American strains of hantavirus are not known to spread from person to person, unlike the Andes strain of hantavirus responsible for the cruise outbreak.<\/p>\n

The risk of contracting Hantavirus of any kind remains very low for Illinois residents, IDPH said.<\/p>\n

The Illinois resident is not seriously ill and is recovering after experiencing mild symptoms that did not require hospitalization.<\/p>\n

The IDPH is working with the CDC on additional testing to confirm the resident is positive for hantavirus.<\/p>\n

That process can take up to 10 days, according to the CDC. Commercial lab serology or antibody tests, which the individual received, are not considered definitive and require confirmation by a more sensitive test at the CDC.<\/p>\n

IDPH said they are coordinating closely with the local health departments, including the Winnebago County Health Department (WCHD), and the CDC.<\/p>\n

Illinois has had seven positive cases of Hantavirus since 1993, most recently in March 2025, prior to the most recent case.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has recorded 890 cases of hantavirus over 30 years since surveillance began in 1993.<\/p>\n

The hantavirus strain most commonly seen in the U.S. is caused by exposure to rodent droppings and is not contagious from person to person, the IDPH said.<\/p>\n

The rodent species \u2014 long-tailed pygmy rice rat \u2014 known to carry the Andes strain of the virus in South America does not live in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The CDC contacted states that had residents aboard the cruise ship connected to the hantavirus outbreak but Illinois has not received communication from the CDC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Illinois resident is suspected to be positive for the hantavirus but a different strain than the recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[269885,97,29898,274561,220200],"class_list":["post-639452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-hantavirus","tag-health","tag-illinois-department-of-public-health","tag-mv-hondius-cruise-ship","tag-virus-outbreak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}