Find in News Talk Sites Images For advanced search options, click here . Subscribe for free email updates . Click here to sign up, or log in . Douglass, a biologist at Montana Tech in Butte, wants to know what brings the rodents into Montana houses, barns and outbuildings, where the likelihood of spreading hantavirus to humans is far greater than in the field. Hantavirus is a respiratory disease characterized by flu-like symptoms.
Humans can catch the virus from deer mice urine, droppings, saliva or nesting materials.
Ten Montanans have had the disease since it was first discovered in 1993. Three have died. If you're going to get sick, you're going to get sick in a building. That's why Douglass and MSU microbiologist Cliff Bond started the Mouse in the House study two years ago. The buildings have holes in each side, a grid on the floor and fluorescent dust at every entry.