{"id":790574,"date":"2026-05-12T07:30:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790574\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T07:30:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:30:54","slug":"jacksonville-doctor-hantavirus-is-rare-but-heres-what-you-need-to-know-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790574\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville doctor: Hantavirus is rare, but here\u2019s what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Hantavirus has been making headlines, and a Jacksonville emergency room doctor wants to put things in perspective.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sonya Rashid, an ER physician in Jacksonville, told News4Jax that most emergency doctors will likely never encounter the disease. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs an emergency medicine physician, I have never seen hantavirus,\u201d Rashid said. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that probably most emergency medicine physicians will encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n

How hantavirus spreads<\/p>\n

Rashid said the virus is primarily transmitted through contact with rodent droppings, feces, or urine \u2014 not easily from person to person. <\/p>\n

\u201cPerson-to-person transmission is relatively uncommon,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is possible, but it is something that is not very prevalent or common.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that the disease is harder to spread than COVID-19, which is airborne and more easily transmitted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think this would be a little harder for it to become a pandemic just because it\u2019s a zoonotic disease that is coming from rodent droppings,\u201d Rashid said. \u201cIt can be spread potentially airborne person to person, but that\u2019s not as likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the symptoms look like<\/p>\n

Early symptoms of hantavirus resemble the flu or a common cold, Rashid said. Those include fevers, chills, body aches, and general illness.<\/p>\n

The disease can progress to more serious complications. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt can progress to oftentimes fluid in your lungs, kidney failure, a decrease in your blood pressure,\u201d Rashid said.<\/p>\n

No FDA-approved treatment<\/p>\n

There are no FDA-approved treatments for hantavirus, Rashid said. Care is primarily supportive \u2014 meaning doctors work to help patients breathe, maintain blood pressure, and manage kidney function if failure occurs. She noted some experimental antivirals exist but are not standard protocol.<\/p>\n

How to protect yourself<\/p>\n

Rashid said the most important precaution is avoiding contact with rodent droppings. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t sweep up any rat droppings,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re doing that, you want to make sure that you\u2019re wearing a lot of protection so you don\u2019t inhale any of those types of substances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should Jacksonville residents be worried?<\/p>\n

Rashid offered this guidance for those concerned about exposure: \u201cIf they were not in direct contact with someone that had hantavirus, I wouldn\u2019t be as worried.\u201d She said anyone who did have direct contact with an infected person should follow quarantine and testing protocols.<\/p>\n

News4Jax reached out to several area hospitals. Baptist Health responded with a statement: <\/p>\n

\n

There are no cases of hantavirus at our health system.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

As part of our standard infectious disease preparedness protocols, any patient with symptoms or risk factors that raise concern would be promptly evaluated and appropriate precautions would be implemented. Our infection prevention team would be engaged immediately and our teams would coordinate with the Florida Department of Health in accordance with established public health guidance.<\/p>\n

Baptist Health<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UF Health said it was not aware of any cases but would follow up. Ascension had not responded as of publication.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Hantavirus has been making headlines, and a Jacksonville emergency room doctor wants to put things…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,322817,3188,723,316365,7310,1184,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-790574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-emergency-medicine-doctor","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-hantavirus","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-medicine","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116560441954362862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}