MADRID. May 10. International Consortium of Journalists JMH Hantavirus and the Black Death are fundamentally similar in that they are both zoonoses (diseases transmitted from animals to humans) whose main reservoir is rodents, and they share a high mortality rate in their severe forms. Both diseases are transmitted to humans through contact with the excrement, urine, or saliva of infected rodents. It is proven that hantavirus is also transmitted between humans. See below for the report on the largest historically recorded hantavirus outbreak in Epuyén, Chubut Province, Argentina. Both hantavirus and Yersinia pestis (the plague bacterium) are established in rodent populations and can jump to humans. Inhalation of virus-laden aerosols from mouse urine or feces (hantavirus) is a route of transmission similar to the risk of environmental exposure in plague. High Mortality: Both can cause serious illness and death if left untreated, with hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome being especially ...