1993 Four Corners hantavirus outbreak

The 1993 Four Corners hantavirus outbreak refers to the first ever known human cases of hantavirus in the United States. It occurred within the Four Corners region of the southwestern part of the country. This region is the geographic intersection where the corners of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet. The region is home to the Hopi, Ute, Zuni, and Navajo Nation Indian Reservations.

The cause of the outbreak was found to be a previously unknown hantavirus, which causes a new form of illness known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome or HPS. The virus is carried by deer mice. The virus was originally referred to as Four Corners virus, Muerto Canyon virus, and Convict Creek virus. It was later named Sin Nombre virus. Transmission to humans was found to be via aerosolized contact with deer mice droppings in enclosed spaces in and around the homes of the victims.

In April, 1993, a young Navajo woman arrived at the Indian Medical Center emergency room in Gallup, New Mexico complaining of flu-like symptoms and sudden, severe shortness of breath. Doctors found the woman’s lungs to be full of fluid. The young woman died soon after her arrival. An autopsy revealed the woman’s lung to be twice the normal weight for someone her age. The cause of her death could not be found and the case was reported to the New Mexico Department of Health.

A month later, a young Navajo man was en route to his fiancée’s funeral in Gallup, when he suddenly became severely short of breath. By the time paramedics brought him to the Indian Medical Center emergency room, he’d stopped breathing and the paramedics were performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The young man could not be revived by doctors and died. The physicians, recalling the similar symptoms and death of the young woman a month earlier, reported his death to the New Mexico Department of Health.

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