Amid growing concerns about a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, Argentina’s health ministry has announced plans to begin testing rodents for the virus. This decision comes after a significant 86% increase in cases of the rare strain in Argentina last year.
The ministry has identified the southern city of Ushuaia as the focal point for trapping and testing vermin, as health authorities suspect the outbreak may have originated there.
According to Argentine officials, a Dutch couple who later died from the virus contracted a rare strain while visiting a landfill in Ushuaia during a bird-watching tour. This exposure occurred just days before they boarded the cruise on March 20.
Stay updated on the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship
The strain in question, known as the Andes virus, is notable for its ability to spread between humans and has a mortality rate of 40%.
“Before boarding the ship, the initial two cases had traveled through Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on a birdwatching trip, which included visits to locations where the rat species known to carry the Andes virus was present,” stated Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, during a press conference on Thursday.
Authorities previously said that the area and the surrounding province of Tierra del Fuego had never recorded a case of the hantavirus.
Argentina’s health ministry said there were 28 deaths in the country from hantavirus last year, up from an average mortality rate of 15 in the five years before that. Nearly a third of its total 86 cases last year were fatal, it said.
With Post Wires
