Overview
- A Malbran-led field team, which began setting traps Monday around Ushuaia, is targeting long‑tailed wild rats to confirm or rule out local circulation of the Andes hantavirus.
- Early rounds produced about 70 captures as up to 150 traps are deployed, with blood and tissue samples headed to the Malbran institute for analysis and results expected in roughly a month.
- Laboratory identification points to the Andes strain, a New World hantavirus that can spread between people in rare cases and lacks both a vaccine and a specific antiviral treatment.
- The MV Hondius outbreak has caused three deaths, and investigators have not yet established where infections began even though the suspected index case, a Dutch traveler, spent 48 hours in Ushuaia before boarding.
- AFP fact‑checkers rejected social‑media claims that a U.S. passenger was a paid “crisis actor,” confirming he is a Boston travel blogger and not the British Covid patient cited in a 2022 BBC report.