Hantavirus cases in Argentina have virtually doubled in the past yr, with the nation recording 32 deaths alongside its highest variety of infections since 2018.
The rise comes as Argentine authorities race to hint the footsteps of a pair who traveled extensively in the nation and later died amid an outbreak of the virus on the cruise ship MV Hondius, which left port in Ushuaia, southern Argentina, on April 1 and is at the moment on its means to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Experts blame climate change and habitat destruction for the rise in cases of the illness, which is normally precipitated by publicity to the urine or feces of contaminated rodents.
The present season, which began in June 2025, has already seen 101 confirmed hantavirus cases, Argentina’s well being ministry stated – in contrast with simply 57 throughout the identical interval final season.
Not solely did the nation document an unusually giant variety of cases this yr, but it surely additionally recorded one in every of the highest lethality charges of current years, with the variety of deaths marking a rise of 10 proportion factors in contrast to the earlier yr.
And these numbers exclude the outbreak on the cruise-ship MV Hondius, the origins of which stay unknown.
While no cases of the hantavirus have been recorded in Ushuaia in current a long time, in accordance to the ministry, the virus is endemic in another areas of Argentina.
Argentine authorities imagine the couple visited numerous areas of the nation as they crossed backwards and forwards over the border with neighboring Chile on a number of events, and into Uruguay, earlier than becoming a member of the cruise.
Four geographic areas of Argentina are traditionally high-risk areas for contagion: Northwest (in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, and Tucumán), Northeast (Misiones, Formosa, and Chaco), Center (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Entre Ríos), and South (Neuquén, Río Negro, and Chubut).
The Dutch couple who died amid the outbreak on the ship are thought to have visited each Misiones and Neuquén on their travels.
For a few years, hantavirus had been related to Patagonia in Argentina’s southern tip, after a lethal outbreak in 2018 killed 11 individuals and resulted in dozens of infections.
This season, nonetheless, most cases have been discovered in the nation’s central area, with the province of Buenos Aires topping the highest variety of cases with 42.
The outbreak on the ship has been linked to the Andes strain of hantavirus, a uncommon however doubtlessly extreme type of the virus that in some cases can unfold between people via shut contact.
Hantavirus in Argentina normally develops in rural and peri-urban areas, in the presence of crops, tall weeds, humidity, or a subtropical climate.
But consultants imagine environmental degradation brought on by climate change and human exercise is contributing to its unfold by permitting the rodents that transmit the virus to thrive in new areas.
“Increasing human interaction with wild environments, habitat destruction, the establishment of small urbanizations in rural areas, and the effects of climate change contribute to the appearance of cases outside historically endemic areas,” the ministry stated.
Extreme climate phenomena, reminiscent of droughts and episodes of intense rainfall in current years, are additionally fueling the development, in accordance to consultants.
Temperature rises generate adjustments in the ecosystem that have an effect on the presence of the long-tailed mouse, the essential service of the virus in Argentina and Chile.
“These rodents are better able to adapt to climate changes, which could facilitate the higher number of cases we are seeing,” defined Eduardo López, an infectious illness specialist and adviser to the Argentine authorities throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Forest fires have prompted each people and wildlife to transfer to new locations, rising the threat, stated Roberto Debbag, vp of the Latin American Society of Vaccinology, whereas tourism developments have additionally had an impact.
“Anyone going to a risk area for tourism, if it is not cleared of undergrowth, represents a very high danger,” Debbag stated.
The Health Ministry stated technical well being groups will journey to Ushuaia in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province to seize and analyze rodents in areas linked to the route of the Dutch couple believed to have been uncovered to the virus.
However, Juan Petrina, director of epidemiology for Tierra del Fuego, stated the timeline “doesn’t add up for them to have contracted the disease here,” citing airport and ship departure information claiming the couple had been solely in Tierra del Fuego from March 29 to April 1.
He additionally dismissed as a “rumor” a suggestion that the couple could have visited a landfill website in Ushuaia earlier than boarding the ship. “The National Ministry of Health hasn’t been able to confirm that this was the case,” Petrina informed a information convention in the southern Argentinian metropolis on Friday.