A UNMC team, led by Siddappa Byrareddy, PhD, vice chair for research and the Singer Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis in the UNMC Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, has published a review article on Hantavirus in the August 2026 edition of the journal Current Opinion in Immunology.
“Hantavirus on the rise: clinical, virological, immunological, and public health perspectives” provides a comprehensive overview of the clinical, virological, immunological and public health aspects of hantavirus and may serve as an informative educational resource, Dr. Byrareddy said. The work is timely, and touches on the recent outbreak of Andes virus (ANDV) on the cruise ship MV Hondius, which saw the world once again turn to UNMC.
It is critical, the UNMC team said, to understand the molecular mechanism underlying the unique ability of the ANDV, among hantavirus strains, to spread between humans. “Hantaviruses remain a major global health threat because of frequent spillover from rodent reservoirs to humans, causing severe disease,” the team wrote in its conclusion.
Arpan Acharya, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience, and Swathi Murakonda and Debapriya Sutar, graduate students, served as authors on the manuscript.