The Centers for Disease Control and Pervention (CDC) is raising awareness about a new virus with respiratory symptoms like influenza and Covid that has landed a number of vulnerable Americans in hospitals this spring.
Human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, causes familiar symptoms like a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and fever, but is a different virus than the flu or Covid. At its 2023 peak in mid-March, nearly 11 per cent of specimens for the virus were positive — a number roughly 36 per cent higher than the standard peak of seven per cent positivity.
