The Role of Mites in the Transmission and Maintenance of Hantaan Virus (Hantavirus: Bunyaviridae)

This review examines the evidence indicating a role for parasitic mites in the transmission and maintenance of Hantaan virus in nature. The available data, much of it from recent studies in China, indicate that both trombiculid and gamasid mites are naturally infected with Hantaan virus and that infected mites can transmit the virus by bite to laboratory mice and transovarially (vertically) through eggs to their offspring. Collectively, these findings challenge the current paradigm of hantavirus transmission, namely, that rodents serve as the reservoir of human pathogenic hantaviruses in nature and that humans are infected with these viruses by inhalation of aerosols of infectious rodent excreta. Further research is needed to confirm the mite-hantavirus association and to determine if parasitic mites are in fact the major source and principal vectors of human pathogenic hantaviruses, such as Hantaan. If the mite hypothesis is correct, then it will significantly alter current concepts about the epidemiology, prevention, and control of human hantavirus infection.