Park Urged to Inform Public of Hantavirus

California’s top health officials are urging the National Park Service to take stronger action to protect employees and those visiting the Channel Islands from a potentially deadly virus abundant in mice at the popular tourist destination.

Deer mice on the five-island chain are undergoing a population explosion, and recent studies show as many as seven in 10 rodents at Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands are infected with hantavirus--more than any other region in the nation--that can cause a rare, but often fatal, disease in people.

News reports of the situation prompted the California Department of Health Services in February to launch an investigation into how the park service notifies the public and protects its workers on the islands, located off of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

The state agency concluded managers at Channel Islands National Park have erroneously assured their employees and the public that the form of hantavirus found on the islands is not harmful to humans.

In fact, the island strain of hantavirus is the same form of the disease that killed two dozen people near the New Mexico-Utah border six years ago and has infected 15 Californians since. However, no one has ever become sick or died after a visit to Channel Islands from hantavirus.

Further, agency investigators found some park employees were uninformed about hantavirus on the islands and were not trained in preventive strategies to reduce the risk of infection.

The conclusions are contained in a March 23 letter State Health Officer Dr. James W. Stratton sent to John Reynolds, the park service’s regional director in San Francisco.

“We were concerned, in part, because it seemed that although the risk is low it was being completely downplayed by the National Park Service staff,” said Vicki Kramer, chief of the vector-borne disease section at the state health department. “Those higher up in the [park service] chain of command should be aware of the risk to the park visitors and employees and to educate them about the risk.”

Officials for the National Park Service could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Meanwhile, investigators of a congressional committee have opened a separate inquiry into the park service’s management of hantavirus at the Channel Islands. Committee staff has solicited documents from the park’s Ventura headquarters and interviewed park service officials in Washington, said Duane Gibson, the committee’s general counsel for oversight and investigations.

Gibson said it is too early to say whether hearings before the full committee will be held. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), a member of the Resources Committee, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Hantavirus, though common in rodents, is especially widespread among deer mice on the Channel Islands because of a dearth of natural predators and lack of other types of rodents on the islands. It doesn’t harm mice, but can be transmitted to humans via dust contaminated by rodent droppings, urine or saliva. Sometimes it is transmitted by rodent bites.

The disease is difficult to contract, but it can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which produces flu-like symptoms that often cause lungs to fill with fluid until the victim drowns.

“People shouldn’t think these deer mice are warm and fuzzy creatures and Mickey Mouse-like,” Kramer said. “We have an image of them being pretty harmless, but that is not always the case.”

Wet winters in recent years have produced lush grasses and have led to a rodent explosion on the Channel Islands and in portions of the Southwest, similar to conditions that preceded the 1993 hantavirus deaths.

Seeking to avoid another outbreak, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged extra precautions this year to keep people from coming into contact with infected mice.

But as recently as this winter, officials at Channel Islands National Park declared hantavirus at the islands noncontagious to people and scaled back public notices. Warning bulletins at the park’s headquarters were removed and personnel provided hantavirus information only when asked. Popular campgrounds were not posted with signs, rangers did not tell visitors on arrival and a park brochure did not mention the disease.

Since mid-February, when news reports first circulated, the park service has added hantavirus information to its Web page and directed its campground reservation coordinator to issue hantavirus warnings to campers. About 60,000 people visit the islands annually.

“This hantavirus is a strain that doesn’t infect human beings . . . there’s no risk to the public or my employees. It’s a nonissue,” park Supt. Tim Setnicka recently told The Times.

But the state health department’s letter contradicts those assertions and urges stronger public notification and better employee training.

In the letter, Stratton identifies the hantavirus strain at the islands as Sin Nombre, which is known to be contagious to humans.

“Although the risk of infection for most Californians is very low, risk may be greater for some persons who engage in activities or frequent places where their opportunity for contact with rodents . . . is likely,” Stratton wrote.

“Because of the abundance and high [infection] rate of rodents on the Channel Islands, visitors and staff should be made aware of their potential for greater risk of infection with hantavirus.”

Specifically, the letter recommends the park service inform visitors about the danger and precautions they should take; post notices at campgrounds, hiking trails and other areas; and prepare park staff to respond to visitors’ questions.

Furthermore, Stratton called on the park to initiate “accurate and thorough education and training” on safety precautions for researchers and park service personnel working on the islands. Long-term employees, too, should receive periodic refresher courses on hantavirus prevention.

“I’m pleased this action was taken,” Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County’s health officer, said Wednesday. “I think knowledge and education is always a good thing for public health.”