n.
Any of a group of viruses carried by rodents that cause epidemic hemorrhagic fever and severe respiratory infections in humans.
[After the Hantan River, South Korea (near which Westerners were first infected by the virus in the 1950s).]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
