Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in New England and Europe

To the Editor: The hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, first described in June 1993, was initially thought to be limited to the western United States. More recently, there have been cases reported in Indiana and Louisiana 1 , 2 . We now report a case of the hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in New England. A 22-year-old white man presented to a Rhode Island emergency room with a nonproductive cough and shaking chills. The patient had been seen two days earlier for symptoms of bilateral flank pain, chills, and mild abdominal pain, which were thought to be due to an acute viral syndrome. He had recently . . .