Discovery of Disease-Carrying Rodents Prompts County Health Advisory

RIVERSIDE - Confirmation that mice trapped west of Beaumont tested positive for the potentially deadly hantavirus prompted Riverside County health officials today to remind residents to take precautions in places inhabited by rodents.

According to the Department of Environmental Health, three deer and western harvest mice snared in January in the Norton Younglove Preserve, between San Timoteo Canyon Road and state Route 60, were confirmed as carriers of hantavirus.

The pathogen can lead to a severe and potentially fatal respiratory infection in humans called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, or H...