Hantavirus by Country

HORIZON tracks hantavirus signal across every country with ingested reports. Country pages include case chronology, the serotype context, and links to the authoritative national public-health authority.

Where in the world is hantavirus most common?

Hantavirus is endemic on every inhabited continent, but specific regions account for the majority of confirmed human cases each year. The geographic distribution is fundamentally driven by the reservoir-rodent species — you can only catch the virus where its host rodent lives — and by climate, land use, and human-rodent contact patterns.

What drives the geographic variation?

• Reservoir host distribution. Each hantavirus has one specific rodent species (or genus) as its primary reservoir. The virus cannot establish where the rodent does not live. Deer mice in North America; long-tailed pygmy rice rats in Patagonia; bank voles in Europe.
• Climate and ecology. Rodent population dynamics depend on food availability (oak/beech mast cycles, agricultural yields), winter severity, predator populations, and habitat conditions. Wet years often precede higher case counts.
• Human-rodent contact patterns. Rural population density, agricultural practices, housing quality, recreational land use, and seasonal-cabin occupancy all influence exposure rates.
• Surveillance intensity. Reported case counts reflect both true incidence and surveillance capacity. Some regions are likely underreporting. HORIZON cross-references multiple authoritative sources to mitigate this bias.

How HORIZON tracks each country

Each country has a dedicated page (linked above) with:

• Current dominant serotype(s) and reservoir species.
• Live case count from authoritative sources.
• Time-series of ingested case reports.
• National public-health authority links (CDC, ECDC, PAHO, UKHSA, RKI, etc.).
• Endemic-zone descriptions for travel-risk assessment.

Country coverage in the HORIZON dataset

HORIZON tracks every country that has appeared in any of our 65+ authoritative-source feeds with at least one hantavirus case report. The list grows as new sources are ingested and as case reports surface from regions not previously represented. Use the cards above to navigate to any country page, or query the JSON API with country filter for direct data access.