CASE STUDY 4 REVIEW QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS | UPDATE 2025-2026 |
100% VERIFIED | GRADE A+
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) - answer ✔✔-It is late-July. You are working as a triage nurse in
the emergency department of a small suburban hospital in New Mexico. An athletic-looking man in his
early 20's is helped into your office by his girlfriend. He greets you and sits down, but is feverish and is
having a hard time breathing. The girlfriend answers your questions for him. She says the symptoms
began yesterday and seemed to worsen quickly. It looks like the flu to you, but it's the wrong season for
flu. So you ask about the man's activities over the past week to 10 days. Nothing in the history points to
an obvious etiology for the disease. And the girlfriend adds that she is a "neat-freak" and is constantly
cleaning and disinfecting the house they share. But of course, respiratory infections are very common
and can be acquired anywhere. After listening to his chest you decide that it may be influenza or
bronchitis. You decide to isolate him from the re
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) - answer ✔✔-a. What is your diagnosis?
Inhalation of Hantavirus likely occurred at the cabin. Certain species of mice get infected by the virus,
which actually causes no disease in the mice. However, these mice spread saliva and relieve themselves
of urine and stool, leaving behind the virus in their waste. This waste can dry and eventually be inhaled
by human beings, causing HPS. Host mice likely inhabited the cabin, the dried waste was disrupted, and
the airborne and infected waste was inhaled by the patient. - answer ✔✔-b. What connection does the
diagnosis have with the cabin?
This is in reference to the likely possibility that the virus was made airborne due to the "neat-freak"
girlfriend sweeping up particles of mouse waste from infected mice. - answer ✔✔-c. You overhear the
charge nurse say to herself: "I knew there was a good reason not to clean my house." To what could she
have been referring?
We can assume that the disease could be found in any location in which the deer mouse and all other
species of mice which are susceptible to the Hantavirus virus. Conditions which benefit the proliferation
of the rodents is also an important factor. When conditions are suitable for the mice, the produce more
AND ANSWERS | UPDATE 2025-2026 |
100% VERIFIED | GRADE A+
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) - answer ✔✔-It is late-July. You are working as a triage nurse in
the emergency department of a small suburban hospital in New Mexico. An athletic-looking man in his
early 20's is helped into your office by his girlfriend. He greets you and sits down, but is feverish and is
having a hard time breathing. The girlfriend answers your questions for him. She says the symptoms
began yesterday and seemed to worsen quickly. It looks like the flu to you, but it's the wrong season for
flu. So you ask about the man's activities over the past week to 10 days. Nothing in the history points to
an obvious etiology for the disease. And the girlfriend adds that she is a "neat-freak" and is constantly
cleaning and disinfecting the house they share. But of course, respiratory infections are very common
and can be acquired anywhere. After listening to his chest you decide that it may be influenza or
bronchitis. You decide to isolate him from the re
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) - answer ✔✔-a. What is your diagnosis?
Inhalation of Hantavirus likely occurred at the cabin. Certain species of mice get infected by the virus,
which actually causes no disease in the mice. However, these mice spread saliva and relieve themselves
of urine and stool, leaving behind the virus in their waste. This waste can dry and eventually be inhaled
by human beings, causing HPS. Host mice likely inhabited the cabin, the dried waste was disrupted, and
the airborne and infected waste was inhaled by the patient. - answer ✔✔-b. What connection does the
diagnosis have with the cabin?
This is in reference to the likely possibility that the virus was made airborne due to the "neat-freak"
girlfriend sweeping up particles of mouse waste from infected mice. - answer ✔✔-c. You overhear the
charge nurse say to herself: "I knew there was a good reason not to clean my house." To what could she
have been referring?
We can assume that the disease could be found in any location in which the deer mouse and all other
species of mice which are susceptible to the Hantavirus virus. Conditions which benefit the proliferation
of the rodents is also an important factor. When conditions are suitable for the mice, the produce more
