90-Second Read: 'I feel like this is my second life': Taos Hantavirus survivor looks back on battle with rare disease

A Taos man who narrowly survived Hantavirus in 2020 shares his story as a deadly cruise ship outbreak of the Andes variant raises global alarm. Health officials rapidly deployed messaging to quell those fears, however, emphasizing that Andes Hantavirus is the only form with documented person-to-person spread. The overall mortality rate for Hantavirus infections can range beyond 50% in some cases, such as during the 1993 Four Corners outbreak, when Sin Nombre virus infected 33 people, 17 of whom died. The Sin Nombre species of Hantavirus is endemic to the American West and well known in New Mexico, which sees more infections from that strain each year than any other state, with an average of five to seven annually, according to the New Mexico Department of Health.

There are 36 recognized species of Hantaviruses worldwide, about half of which are known to infect humans, according to the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. The Colorado Department of Health reported on Monday that a Douglas County, Colorado, man died over the weekend from a suspected rodent-borne case of Hantavirus, which tends to be most prevalent in spring and early summer, according to UC Health. Cases are recorded nearly every year in New Mexico, with 142 Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome cases and 55 deaths between 1975 and 2025, according to the Department of Health. After days with a searing fever, splitting headache and teetering oxygen levels, a nurse had come to tell him the news he had a less than 50% chance of hearing: "You're on the downhill now." It was August 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But while the world was gripped by fear of a novel coronavirus, CDC data indicates Fratrick was one of 17 Americans that year to become infected with a pathogen far deadlier and also little understood: Hantavirus. Investigators identified the variant that circulated aboard the 170-person MV Hondius last month as the Andes virus, the only form of Hantavirus known to spread from person to person. Since Hantavirus produces respiratory symptoms, she added, physicians are always advised to exercise caution. Unlike "old world" Hantavirus species prevalent among rodents in Asia, Europe and Africa, "new world" variants found throughout the Americas are much more dangerous, causing lungs to fill with fluid, resulting in severe respiratory failure or shock.

Even though Fratrick had worn an N95 respirator mask during his cleaning project several weeks prior, Petersen knew Hantavirus was a possibility as Fratrick's body aches, fever and headache intensified. Every August since his recovery, Fratrick has welcomed Bradfute and other researchers from the UNM Health Sciences Center to his property in Taos to capture one of Hantavirus' most common carriers: the western deer mouse. In 2025, the UNM lab published a paper that found Hantavirus in roughly a quarter of rodents researchers have collected throughout the state.