Three people in Mammoth Lakes died recently after contracting hantavirus, the same infection that killed Gene Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa earlier this year. The cases have heightened concerns among public health officials about the spread of the rare, but deadly disease that attacks the lungs .
At a news conference last month, Dr. Heather Jarrell, chief medical examiner at the New Mexico medical investigator’s office, said that the mortality rate is between 38% and 50% among those infected in the American Southwest. It wasn’t on many people’s radar until New Mexico’s chief medical examiner confirmed Arakawa, 65, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in March.
The virus can spread through the urine, feces or saliva of wild rodents, including deer mice, which are common in many parts of California, according to the California Department of Public Health…