Argentines hunting for source of hantavirus outbreak trap rats in southernmost city
Scientists are testing whether a local rodent can carry the Andes strain, the only hantavirus known to spread between people, after the cruise outbreak killed 3 passengers.
- On Tuesday, Malbr Institute scientists began trapping rodents in Ushuaia to investigate the source of a hantavirus outbreak aboard the Hondius cruise ship that killed three people and triggered global contact tracing.
- The Andes virus typically spreads through colilargo feces in northern Patagonia, yet experts believe the cold, isolated Tierra del Fuego environment prevents the rat from inhabiting that region.
- Scientists are examining 150 traps set in two areas where a local colilargo subspecies lives, seeking to determine if this specific rodent can transmit the hantavirus.
- Alfaro, spokesperson for the Argentine Health Ministry, rejected government claims that the cruise outbreak began at a landfill, welcoming the investigation to clarify the virus's status in the province.
- Scientists attribute increasing hantavirus cases across Argentina to climate change and human encroachment, as the Malbr Institute plans to test samples at their Buenos Aires laboratory within one month.
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A scientific mission in Ushuaia, the southernmost city of Argentina, captured more than a hundred rodents to analyze them although it did not find among them any “colilargo”, the vector of the strain of hantavirus involved in the outbreak of the Hondius cruiser, a health authority reported this Thursday.
Argentine biologists captured 150 rodents in Ushuaia to determine if they were carriers of the hantavirus, after the outbreak of infection detected on the ship Hondius Argentinian scientists
Argentina Traps Rats in Search for Source of Hantavirus Outbreak
Health officials in Argentina trapped hundreds of rats near the town of Ushuaia, hoping to determine the origins of the hantavirus outbreak. The post Argentina Traps Rats in Search for Source of Hantavirus Outbreak appeared first on Breitbart.
The number of confirmed cases places the 2025-2026 season among those with the highest historical incidence. Scientists carry out research in Tierra del Fuego, after the episode in the ship MV Hondius, which activated health surveillance in several countries
The search for the hantavirus outbreak that killed three people on the Hondius cruise ship continues in Ushuaia, in the far south of Argentina. Investigators are now hunting rodents in the forests for the possible presence of the virus, which is also carried by rats. More than 100 traps have been set and dead animals have been collected.
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