ABSTRACT
RESULTS and DISCUSSION The study of virus evolution is difficult, for one very obvious reason - we have no fossils
to use in tracing where and when a virus might have originated or how it may have changed. What we can do is speculate on possible virus evolution by comparing genomic sequences of currently existing strains from different parts of the world. The hantaviruses represent a good basis for this kind of study, since many strains exist worldwide in a variety of different animal hosts, and cause a variety of different diseases in man.
