1 Macready N Hantavirus may spread from person to person.

2 Gaon J

Karlovac M

Grešikova M

et al. Epidemiological features of haemorrhagic fever.

3 Hlača D

ArnautoviJ A

Vesenjak-Hirjan J Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome-epidemiological and serological investigations 13 years later after the great epidemic in Fojnica.

4 MarkotiJ A

LeDuc JW

Hlača D

et al. Hantaviruses are likely threat to NATO forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

Norra Macready's June 28 news item (p 1890)about hantaviral infection among physicians of patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) reminded me of the famous epidemiologist Jakob Gaon's (died 1995) report in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At an international symposia on haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), in Belgrade in 1987, Gaon described a dentist who developed HFRS after being injured with contaminated forceps during tooth extraction in a patient with HFRS. The dentist had never been in a forest and denied any contact with rodents. This case could be the first evidence of possible human-to-human transmission of hantavirus in Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the largest regions with endemic HFRS in Europe. The outbreak of HFRS in Fojnica, in 1967, was the most widespread HFRS epidemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina;13 years later, Hlaca and colleaguesshowed that the disease had been caused by hantaviruses (Puumala or Hantaan). The last HFRS epidemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina was described during the war in 1995.