Argentina to expand hantavirus search to second province as probe on cruise ship outbreak widens

BUENOS AIRES – Argentina will expand its search for hantavirus-carrying rodents to western Mendoza province as part of an investigation into a deadly cruise ship outbreak in April, the Health Ministry said on June 5.

Attention soon focused on the South American nation, where the Andes hantavirus strain is endemic in several regions, as the potential origin of the outbreak.

In May, scientists from Malbran Institute, Argentina’s leading centre for infectious diseases, travelled to Ushuaia to determine whether rodents in the area carried the rare respiratory disease.

Scientists from the institute will next travel to Mendoza to conduct further investigations with experts from the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from June 8 to 12, the Health Ministry said.

Results from more than 100 rodents captured in Tierra del Fuego in May were still being analysed, the statement added.

Hantavirus is endemic in several Argentine provinces, though not in Mendoza.

The sites for the new study “were selected on the basis of ecological and eco-epidemiological criteria” linked to rodent habits, the ministry said.

According to the University of Mendoza, the province “currently has no confirmed local circulation of the Andes virus”.

But there is “a potential presence of the reservoir rodent”, it added.

Tierra del Fuego has meanwhile not had a case of hantavirus since its reporting became mandatory 30 years ago. AFP