Laboratory Diagnosis of Human Hantavirus Infection: Novel Insights and Future Potential

Infections by Hantavirus (Bunyaviridae) can cause severe human diseases, such as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Eurasia and cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas. These diseases are emergent and became a serious public health problem worldwide. Thus, rapid, sensitive and reliable methods for diagnosis of hantavirus infection are necessary in order to manage patients and control this rodent-borne virosis. Serological methods, such as neutralization tests, immunoblots and enzyme immunoassays using hantavirus-recombinant proteins as antigens, are discussed in this article, as well as new methods such as an immunochromatographic test. Hantavirus genome detection by different kinds of reverse transcription-PCR, including the real-time variant, is also discussed.