Updated guidelines for protection of mammalogists and wildlife researchers from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS)

The American Society of Mammalogists herein provides revised guidelines for personnel working with rodents potentially infected with viruses that cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in humans. We also clarify that previously published guidelines, including those of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were not intended to apply to field-workers conducting nonviral-based research on rodents. Unfortunately, institutional animal care and use committees and other safety officers have assumed that current CDC recommendations are requirements for conducting safe field research. They then have misapplied the original CDC recommendations to field researchers conducting behavioral, ecological, taxonomic, and other research, making field research increasingly and unnecessarily difficult. Herein, we provide guidelines that have been modified from those published by the CDC to incorporate new information about HPS risk and to better match the level of personal protection to the level of risk associated with a wider array of field activities. DOI: 10.1644/10-MAMM-A-306.1.