Argentine researchers are actively seeking the origin of a fatal hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise that departed last month by setting traps to capture rodents in the forests surrounding the southernmost city of Ushuaia. The goal is to identify any potential presence of the rat-borne virus in an area previously believed to be unaffected.
Wearing bright blue gloves and surgical masks, the scientists inspected 150 box traps they had placed the night before, collecting deceased rats in black plastic bags for transport to a temporary lab. This initiative, known as rat-trapping, signifies the commencement of fieldwork in Argentina’s broader probe into the outbreak that hit the MV Hondius, resulting in three fatalities and multiple illnesses, including a Canadian passenger.
The investigative team, operating under the state-backed Malbrán Institute, plans to repeat the trapping process for the next three days before transferring the samples to the institute’s primary laboratory in Buenos Aires for hantavirus testing. Although the testing process could span up to a month, officials refrained from divulging further specifics.
MartÃn Alfaro, the spokesperson for Tierra del Fuego’s local health ministry, mentioned that the researchers captured the anticipated specimens during the operation. The research is a response to the Argentine Health Ministry’s decision to dispatch the Malbrán Institute team to Ushuaia nearly two weeks ago, following the initial detection of the outbreak on the cruise ship.
Despite hantavirus never being documented in Ushuaia or the wider Tierra del Fuego archipelago, concerns have arisen regarding the investigation, particularly regarding the Dutch tourists who were the first known victims of the outbreak. Provincial officials in Patagonia, where hantavirus is prevalent, dispute that the Dutch couple, who tragically passed away, could have been exposed during their visit to the region.
The Andes virus, found in southern Chile and Argentina, is primarily transmitted through the long-tailed pygmy rice rat, colloquially known as the “colilargo.” While this rat species is absent in Tierra del Fuego, a related subspecies inhabits the forests surrounding Ushuaia, prompting the need for further examination on its potential to transmit hantavirus.
Health authorities in Tierra del Fuego, reliant on tourism, assert that the province is not the outbreak source and support the investigation’s broader goal of confirming the presence of hantavirus amidst global warming challenges. The research team is focusing its rat-trapping efforts in areas where the colilargo subspecies is prevalent, such as the national park and wooded hillsides overlooking Ushuaia’s main beach.
The surge in hantavirus cases in Argentina in recent years is linked to climate change and human activities expanding the habitat of colilargos. Scientists emphasize the importance of ruling out the possibility of hantavirus transmission in Tierra del Fuego and are vigilant in their efforts to understand the virus’s dynamics.
