300 In Russia Have Hemorrhagic Fever - Population Of Rodent Vectors Booming In Winter Warmth - AFP

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About 300 people in western Russia have been infected with a potentially fatal illness transmitted by rodents due to the unusually warm winter, a regional health official said Wednesday, quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency.

So far 200 people have been hospitalised due to the outbreak of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which has taken place in the provinces of Voronezh and Lipetsk, south of Moscow, said the chief doctor of Voronezh, Mikhail Chubirko.

Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome is found across much of the Eurasian land mass. In its later stages symptoms include acute shock and kidney failure, according to the US Department of Health's Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Depending on the virus involved, death occurs in less than one percent to 15 percent of cases, according to CDC's Internet site. Chubirko said one in three field mice had been found to be carrying the illness due to the warm weather, which had increased the availability of food in fields.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2006/070117143135.coek0ei3.html

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1. Another warming side effect: epidemics.

The gift that keeps on giving. And we are not prepared for any of it.