Hantavirus Outbreak Allegedly Started from a Waste Disposal Area

Illustration photo. (Dok. Pexels)

JAKARTA - A landfill (TPA) on the outskirts of Ushuaia, Argentina, is suspected to be the source of the initial outbreak of hantavirus that occurred on the MV Hondius cruise ship.

The suspicion arose after national health authorities traced the possible location of exposure to the virus to a pair of Dutch tourists who are believed to be the beginning of the chain of transmission.

The couple is suspected of being exposed to the virus while participating in bird-watching activities around the landfill area before boarding a cruise ship from Ushuaia on April 1, 2026.

Shortly after the trip began, the 70-year-old began showing symptoms and died on April 11. Meanwhile, his wife, 69, died in South Africa when trying to return to Europe.

The investigation is of serious concern because the identified virus is the Andes strain, the only known type of hantavirus that can be transmitted between humans. This condition is suspected to be the cause of the spread of infection in the cruise ship environment.

However, the Ushuaia regional government denied the allegation that their territory was the starting point of the outbreak. Local authorities stated that there had never been any records of hantavirus cases in the area for decades.

"We feel that we are facing a kind of defamation campaign against this tourist destination," Juan Facundo Petrina, Director of Epidemiology of the Tierra del Fuego Province, said at a press conference in Ushuaia, quoted from the Euro News website on Thursday, May 14, 2026.

Petrina emphasized that the southernmost region of Argentina has no history of hantavirus cases in the past few decades. According to him, reports linking Ushuaia with the outbreak have the potential to affect the tourism sector, which is the backbone of the local economy.

"We only learned about the suspected source of this infection from media reports. Until now, there has been no definitive evidence confirming the origin of the transmission," said Petrina.

However, the national health technical team is scheduled to go directly to the landfill site to capture rodents and search for traces of the virus. The focus of the investigation is on Oligoryzomys longicaudatus or long-tailed dwarf rice rats, a wild species known to be a natural reservoir of the Andes strain.

Hantavirus transmission generally occurs through contact with the saliva, urine, or feces of infected rodents. However, in the Andes strain, human-to-human transmission can occur. This makes it more dangerous than other variants.

The Argentine government has also activated international cooperation by sending genetic samples of the virus to laboratories in Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and South Africa to strengthen the process of identifying and diagnosing outbreaks.

In recent years, the death rate from hantavirus in Argentina has been reported to have increased sharply. Health authorities have recorded a fatality rate soaring from around 17 percent in the 2019-2024 period to more than 33 percent in the past year, sparking concerns at both the national and international levels.