Argentina launches rodent hunt after deadly hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

A team of biologists from Buenos Aires has officially deployed the first wildlife traps across Tierra del Fuego to determine if local rodents are harbouring a rare, lethal strain of hantavirus.

The emergency scientific mission follows a deadly outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, which departed from Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city, on April 1. The outbreak resulted in three deaths, including a Dutch tourist who had spent 48 hours exploring Ushuaia before embarking. 

Hunting the long-tailed carrier

Equipped with specialised biohazard masks and gloves, researchers from the Malbrán Institute, Argentina's top infectious disease authority, set up roughly 150 small rectangular metal cages on Monday night. The traps are heavily targeted within wooded trails and the 70,000-hectare Tierra del Fuego National Park, 15 kilometres outside the city.

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The primary objective is to capture local woodland mice, specifically the long-tailed pygmy rice rat (Oligoryzomys longicaudatus) or its regional subspecies, to check if they carry the Andes strain of the virus. The Andes variant is uniquely dangerous because it is the only known hantavirus strain capable of spreading directly between humans.

Local authorities push back

While the scientific community has welcomed the testing pipeline to assess potential danger, local Patagonian officials are denying that the virus originated in Ushuaia.

They say that the remote Tierra del Fuego archipelago, separated from mainland South America by the geographical barrier of the Strait of Magellan, has not recorded a single case of hantavirus since mandatory tracking began 30 years ago. Local experts suggest the infected passengers likely contracted the disease during their extensive four-month road travels through other mainland provinces in Chile or northern Argentina, where the virus is known to be endemic.