Worried about infection from rats

[Fangtastics]

Yesterday I cleared out the bins that tenants had left at my property. Seven wheelie bins of unbagged food waste. There were rats in the bins. I’m freaking out I’ll get ill now. What should I do?

What’s the difference between the variants?

Hantavirus infections in the UK are very rare, and the risk to the general public remains extremely low. Only one specific strain—the Seoul hantavirus—is established in the UK, carried by wild brown rats and pet rodents. Unlike some European or South American strains, the UK strain does not spread from person to person.

Just a safety note, in future always wear an FFP3 mask and safety goggles when doing any cleaning of any area thar may contain rodent droppings or urine.

Seoul virus, a strain of hantavirus carried globally by wild and pet rats, causes a moderate disease known as Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS). While it is a serious infection requiring medical attention, it is generally considered much less lethal than other hantavirus strains, with a mortality rate typically under 1%

Tell the people in your street. You are a spreader of a virus if you have rats.

The GP will not test if you’re not ill or showing any symptoms.

OP, there is nothing you can do now, and probability is you’ll be fine.

If you develop flu-like symptoms or food poisoning type symptoms, then contact your GP.

Given that they have only started to monitor its presence in the UK and that prior researchers have stated it is under-diagnosed you need to take the very rare with a grain of salt. OP isn’t worried about catching it from a person, but from the rats.

When I looked this up, it doesn’t look like the European variant is established at all in the U.K. ie zero cases - I confess I’ve only spent about 5 minutes on it though, so maybe I am mistaken?

Please educate yourself, only the Andes varient is transmissable between humans. The aforementioned UK strain is the European strain which is less deadly.

It is established in the UK, has been since 2014 based on case studies of farmers getting it that have never travelled.

Hmm - that’s odd. This site mentions that the Seoul variant is the only one found in the U.K. https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2026/rapid-reaction-should-i-be-worried-about-hantavirus

also very ai overview I’ve read has said the same that there’s no European variant here. I know au can make mistakes but I’m surprised they’ve all missed these cases you’ve mentioned.

Do you have ocd op? I only ask because I do and germs freak me out, so I could see myself behaving this way with worrying too

this is ridiculous advice, no one’s going to test you for anything because you saw a rat behind a bin.

fyi the commonest infection from rats in the uk is leptospirosis (weils disease) and most people get this from open water/river swimming

I don’t have OCD or general health anxiety. A friend of mine suggested last night I should have the council round to do the job and when I woke up I realised what she had suggested. So I’m not depressed or anything. I just realised that environmental health departments exist for a reason so should I be concerned.

Getting the council out of you have rats is perfectly normal but I think you are conflating two issues. The fact the council will come out and help you deal with rats doesn’t mean that you are likely to have come to harm from your recent experience.

This site has the summary
https://patient.info/doctor/infectious-disease/hantavirus-infection

Hantavirus human pathogens2
Back to contents

• Over a dozen variations of Hantavirus have been discovered.
• They are found all over the world, each associated with a specific rodent reservoir.
• The hantaviruses in the Americas include sin nombre virus (SNV) and Andes virus (ANDV). The Laguna Negra, Rio Mamore, Oran, Lechiguanas and Pergamino viruses are considered variants of ANDV. The New York virus and Monongahela virus are variants of SNV. All cause HPS.
• European viruses include PUUV (which is the most common in Europe and carried by the bank vole) and Dobrava-Belgrade virus (DOBV) and SAAV (carried by particular mice). These viruses all cause HFRS.
• For 2020 in Europe, 28 countries reported 1,647 cases of hantavirus infection (0.4 cases per 100,000 population), mainly caused by Puumala virus (98%). During the period 2016–2020, the overall notification rate fluctuated between 0.4 and 1.0 cases per 100,000 population, with no obvious long-term trend.
• The main East Asian viruses are Seoul virus (SEOV) and Hantaan virus. Both cause HFRS.
• Each virus is specific to a particular rodent species.
• Public Health England (PHE) data suggest the presence of a variant of PUUV in rodent populations in the UK.6

Hantavirus in the UK12
In the UK Hantavirus is rare but not unknown. PHE has been monitoring the risk of Hantavirus in the UK for some years. It concluded that seroprevalence is higher than previously thought. In other words, Hantavirus is already here but may generally cause a mild form HFRS which is largely passing 'beneath the radar'.6 Its study concluded that:

• Hantaviruses are widely spread amongst rodents in the UK.
• Over 30% of pet rat owners have antibodies against hantaviruses.
• Most human infections in the UK are likely to be mild and nonspecific.
• Amongst occupationally exposed people like farmers, sewage and waste disposal workers, veterinarians and pest control, forestry and nature conservation workers, seropositivity is 1-3% (similar to the general public).
• When cases are diagnosed, animals in the surrounding environment test positive.
• In recent years a few pet rat-acquired cases of SEOV have had to be hospitalised in North Wales, Yorkshire, Humberside and Scotland.
• Studies of rodents trapped in Cheshire, showed the existence of a novel Hantavirus, which is related to PUUV and Tula virus (TULV).

Interesting - thanks!

For perspective - I asked why this wasn’t picked up in the AI overview and this was the response;

The PHE report is obscure and old. The key source the patient.info article cites is a 2016 Public Health England risk assessment document. That’s a fairly niche government report that doesn’t get widely indexed or cited in general health information.

It’s a “novel variant” — not classic PUUV. The Cheshire rodent finding was described as a related virus, not confirmed PUUV itself. So searches for “Puumala virus UK” or “European hantavirus UK” might not surface it, because technically it hasn’t been formally classified as the same strain.

Human cases are so mild they’re rarely diagnosed. Because most UK infections are thought to be subclinical or mistaken for flu/mild kidney issues, there’s almost no clinical literature on confirmed UK human cases of the European variant. That means very little to find.

Search results prioritise the dramatic. Most hantavirus coverage focuses on the deadly American HPS strain (40-50% mortality) — that’s the newsworthy version. The mild European HFRS barely registers by comparison.

The SEOV (Seoul virus) cases get more attention. The UK cases that have been documented and written up involve Seoul virus from pet rats — that’s the strain with hospitalised cases in Wales, Yorkshire and Scotland mentioned in the article. That tends to dominate UK-specific results.

So it’s not that the information doesn’t exist — it’s just buried in a single 2016 PHE report that most sources, including me in previous conversations, apparently haven’t surfaced.

Very true, it’s underdiagnosed in the UK and we can see why that is so in this thread with posters discouraging seing a gp about it, calling it health anxiety, and rubbishing the very thought you could catch anything,

But even if you were right how is something presenting as so mild it isn’t being picked up a concern or something the GP is going to run off testing for?

Rats dont carry bubonic plague in the UK!!!

OP, unless a rat bit you, you have open wounds on your skin and they weed on you or you breathed in lots of their dried poo you'll be fine.

Have a shower, wash your hair and relax.

You have 7 days to live.

Bubonic plague? Seriously?