At least three people have died from a rare and deadly virus that killed Hollywood actor Gene Hackman's wife earlier this year. According to authorities, the deaths occurred in the rural California town of Mammoth Lakes and have caused significant worry among local health officials.

Betsy Arakawa died along with Hackman in February at their home in New Mexico from the hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. It took officials two weeks to figure out that she had caught the virus. Hackman’s death, however, was not related to the virus.

The Mono County Public Health confirmed three more deaths from the virus, describing the situation as both tragic and alarming. “The occurrence of three cases in a short period has me worried,” Tom Boo, Mono County Public Health Officer, told The New York Post.

According to officials, two of the victims were believed to have been exposed to a highly infectious virus while vacuuming rodent waste in a home with a known infestation. Another person likely became infected at home as well. "We don't have a clear sense of where this young adult may have contracted the virus," Boo said. Deer mice are widespread in California's Eastern Sierra region, but Boo said their numbers are thought to be higher than normal this year, which could increase the risk of exposure to hantavirus.

According to experts, the Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, or HPS, is a rare viral disease that can damage your heart, lungs, and other organs. It progresses quickly and can be highly fatal.

Doctors say you can get HPS while inhaling, eating, drinking, or otherwise coming into contact with infected mouse or rat feces - droppings or poop, urine, or saliva. While Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is rare, there have been around one thousand recorded cases of HPS in the United States since medical researchers began tracking it in 1993.

Doctors say once the hantavirus enters your body, it replicates and spreads. In your lungs, the virus causes the muscles to weaken and leak. The air sacs in your lungs can fill with blood, which makes breathing difficult. In your heart, the virus damages your heart muscle itself and causes your blood vessels to become weak and leak.

Weak, leaky blood vessels affect your heart’s ability to pump oxygen-filled blood and nutrients to cells and organs in your body. When your cells and organs can’t get enough blood, your body goes into shock. If your body goes into shock, you can quickly experience organ failure and die.

Hantavirus causes three different phases of symptoms as the infection progresses. The first stage is the incubation or development phase which lasts up to eight weeks. During this period, you have the hantavirus, but you do not have any outward signs of infection.

The second phase develops quickly and produces the first signs, which include:

• High fever and chills
• Fatigue and tiredness
• Muscle aches, especially around your thighs, hips and back
• Stomachache
• Nausea and vomiting
• Diarrhoea
• Rashes
• Dry cough and breathlessness
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Internal bleeding
• Your lungs fill up with fluid
• Rapid heartbeat
• Chest tightness

According to doctors, the second phase lasts between two and eight days.

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