Definition of Renal syndrome with hemorrhagic fever

Renal syndrome with hemorrhagic fever: A number of diseases characterized by an abrupt onset of high fever and chills, headache, cold and cough, and pain in the muscles, joints and abdomen with nausea and vomiting followed by bleeding into the kidney and elsewhere. Known also as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.

Many arboviruses (including those in the families Togaviridae, Flaviviridae, Filoviridae, and Bunyaviridae) and the Hantaviruses, spread by rodents or biting insects, can cause epidemic hemorrhagic fever. The Ebola virus is a notorious cause of epidemic hemorrhagic fever.

Bioterrorism -- There has been concern about the hemorrhagic fever as a possible weapon for bioterrorism. However, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, in a 1999 report considered hemorrhagic fever to be an "unlikely" biologic threat for terrorism, because these viruses are very difficult to obtain and process, unsafe to handle, and relatively unstable. The lethal effects of these viruses were deemed by the GAO to depend on the strain but can be "very high."