Deadly Desert Plague Left Scars on Kin of Victims : Hantavirus: Dozens died, beginning in Four Corners area. Navajos cannot forget the pestilence, nor the stigma that they blame on the news media.

Most days, Mary Francisco and her grandmother, Anita Pablo, drive 10 miles to a dusty intersection outside the Navajo reservation in western New Mexico.

There, they sell Indian fry bread from the back of their tan pickup truck--to make a little money, and to forget.

“When we stay home, we think too much about those guys,” said Francisco, 27. “They’re gone, and it’s hard to think of other things. We come over here so we can forget everything.”

But there is no forgetting Francisco’s husband, Bobby, nor her aunt, Brenda Benally, nor any of the other victims of a plague that seemed to come out of nowhere, surfacing first on the reservation and then elsewhere, killing dozens.

A year later, scientists have traced the disease to a hantavirus carried by rodents. They say it may have been around for years, unnoticed, until six people died of unexplained respiratory infections over a two-week period in late May and early June of last year.

Health officials put out precautionary guidelines, stressing the need for living in clean places, trapping mice and decontaminating the rodents’ nests.

But the Navajos cannot put the pestilence behind them.

For one thing, no one knows why the disease struck so suddenly, with such lethal consequences, or whether it might strike again.

Or why the Indians were hit so hard.

Or how to erase the memories of culture clashes, of fear, of death.

*

Bobby Francisco, 36, became ill in early July, shortly after returning from a visit to his family home in Canoncito, 30 miles west of Albuquerque. Mary Francisco said she drove her ailing husband to the Public Health Service hospital in Crownpoint, where his condition worsened.

Hantavirus has early symptoms mirroring the flu--fever, muscle aches, coughing, red eyes, headache. In the often-fatal late stages, a patient’s lungs fill with fluid to inhibit breathing.

After being moved 70 miles north to San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, Bobby Francisco was airlifted to University Hospital in Albuquerque--where regional hospitals send hantavirus victims.

He died July 8.

By then, the mysterious illness was the stuff of headlines. National attention focused on the Southwest’s Four Corners area, where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet, and in particular on and around the New Mexico and Arizona portions of the 15,971-square-mile Navajo reservation.

Twenty epidemiologists had been sent to New Mexico and Arizona by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to try to uncover the cause of the illness.

Within a month, the epidemiologists and 100 other researchers working elsewhere linked the disease to deer mice droppings and urine that become airborne particles and are inhaled by humans.

Visitors, afraid of catching the mystery illness, stayed away from the region. Motel reservations were canceled, vacation plans changed, by tourists fearful to venture into the area. A major team-roping event at Red Rock State Park near Gallup was moved 140 miles east to Albuquerque when many of the 1,700 ropers said they would withdraw.

But visitors’ fears paled compared to those of the Navajos, who were faced with a fatal, mysterious illness that seemed to be afflicting their tribe. “I’m not afraid to say I’m scared. I’m terrified,” said Navajo disc jockey Martha Pino. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

Some called it the “Navajo disease,” and the Indians objected. They tried to attack the problem in their own way, assigning medicine men to perform cleansing rituals. Some accused the government of withholding information, darkly recalling the genocidal policies of the past.

Then the news media arrived.

Beginning around Memorial Day, journalists descended on Navajo hogans--traditional homes fashioned from logs and mud. Littlewater--Francisco’s home, and a town to which three other victims had ties--soon became the flash point in a clash between cultures.

“These were very rude outsiders and they were asking very personal questions,” said Tom Arviso Jr., a Navajo and the managing editor of the Navajo Times newspaper in Window Rock, Ariz.

“They asked about victims’ sexual habits and their eating habits. They asked, ‘Do you take a bath every day? Do you wash your hair?’ If that doesn’t offend you, especially from a total stranger, then something’s wrong.”

Medical investigators--desperately pursuing a cause to explain the illness--struggled in their interviews, claiming residents were soured by aggressive behavior and intrusive questions by reporters.

In Navajo culture, it is taboo to say the name of a loved one for four days after death, or to say anything negative about the person’s life. Even after the fourth day, it is considered respectful to remain silent.

Some reporters and medical investigators drove to remote homes, approached an entrance and knocked or called inside. Traditional Navajos expect visitors to wait about 30 feet outside the home until greeted by an inhabitant.

Some photographers persisted in taking pictures over the objections of the Navajos, who believe that the image on film takes away part of the soul.

Ten miles from Littlewater, where a bumpy sandstone road meets the paved highway at Crownpoint, signs went up:

“No News Media Allowed--Newspaper, TV, Radio.”

*

A year later, most Navajos say little about the scare. There are signs that it is being tucked into the past; the team-roping contest, relocated last year, will return to Red Rock State Park in 1994, organizers say.

It is some strange comfort to know that the disease is not limited to this locale; it has been confirmed in 18 states, accounting for 42 deaths in 73 cases, according to the CDC.

There have been isolated occurrences this year. Two cases treated this spring at the Public Health Service hospital in Gallup resulted in death, and a California woman survived a bout that health officials believe was contracted at her part-time home in Santa Fe.

Doctors and scientists say the chance of another surge in hantavirus cases is difficult to predict. Some have tried to link cases to environmental conditions, such as the heavy winter precipitation last year in New Mexico and the ensuing explosion of pine nuts--fodder for rodents--in the spring.

“The more common explanation is simply that the disease has always been here and we’ve got to learn to live with it,” said Dr. Tim Fleming, chief executive at the Gallup hospital.

A Navajo medicine man, Mark Charley of Fruitland, N.M., blames military battles and industrial waste elsewhere for polluting the country. He said pollution clouds distorted the healthy power of sunshine, causing an environmental imbalance that triggered the outbreak.

Charley said he has been praying for rain to wash the illness off Indian lands, and he doesn’t think an outbreak will occur again.

Littlewater’s medicine man, John Willie, agrees that the contagion is unlikely to return this summer.

“All you can do is pray it will go away,” said Willie, speaking in Navajo through a translator. “But it shouldn’t happen again now because there were enough people who suffered already.”

*

The suffering of Mary Francisco and Anita Pablo goes on. Linked by miles of bumpy dirt roads, Littlewater’s residents stopped by Francisco’s home to support her and Pablo as they mourned the loss of their relatives.

“Lots of people here were sad for us,” said Francisco, left to rear her three children alone. “Many people came around and talked to us. They told us things would be all right.”

As she and Pablo rested on the tailgate of their pickup and waited for customers, Francisco said they have relied on each other to survive the difficult times of the past year.

“That’s why we’re always together,” Francisco said. “I just want to help my grandmother and keep my children.”

Pablo--who speaks only Navajo--said through Francisco’s translation that it still makes her very sad to talk about her loss.

“She thinks about them,” Francisco said, “but now she has a lot of new friends to make her feel happier.”

Avoiding Hantavirus

Recommendations by public health officials to control rodents and prevent humans from contracting hantavirus: Controlling exposure to rodents in and around living quarters:

* Do not leave old cars or junk piles in yard because they attract rodents.

* Get rid of food or water sources near buildings.

* Store all food, including pet and livestock food, in sealed containers.

* Put garbage in rodent-proof containers.

* Do not overfeed wild birds.

* Do not sleep on the floor or bare ground.

* Plug holes in walls and floors as small as a quarter of an inch.

* Set spring-loaded traps baited with food. Indoors, place the trap on newspapers sprinkled with flea powder. Outdoors, place the trap near wood and junk piles.

Cleanup:

* If a live rodent is found in a home, trap it, spray the trap and the rodent with disinfectant, pick it up with shovel or rubber or disposable gloves, double plastic bag the trap and rodent, and place in the garbage. People in rural areas should bury it, according to local ordinances.

* Pets and people cannot transmit the disease, but if either touches a rodent, wash well with soap. Dust pets with flea powder.

* Do not sweep an area where there have been rodents with a broom or use a vacuum in the area until it has been thoroughly disinfected.

* Spray the area with disinfectants, such as Lysol or a mixture of 1 1/2 cups of chlorine bleach to a gallon of water. Then mop the area with the same type of disinfectant.

* Disinfect everything used to clean an area, including such things as rubber gloves, dustpans, shovels and the like. Disinfect everything you are going to throw away.

* Carpets can be disinfected or shampooed.

* Bedding and clothing can be washed. Use lots of soap and hot water.

* Furniture can be disinfected or shampooed.

* If an infected barn or outbuilding must be cleaned, wear a mask with HEPA filter, then set traps.

* If a rodent nest is discovered, spray or dust it with insecticide for fleas, wait one day, then follow cleanup procedures listed above.

* People working in enclosed spaces where there is heavy rodent infestation should wear negative pressure masks with HEPA filters or PAPR respirators. Respirators are not considered protective if facial hair interferes with the face seal.