Argentina will expand its search for hantavirus-carrying rodents to western Mendoza province as part of an investigation into a deadly cruise ship outbreak in April, the health ministry said Friday.<\/p>\n
The MV Hondius was sailing from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cape Verde when its journey was disrupted after three passengers died following a hantavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n
Attention soon focused on the South American nation, where the Andes hantavirus strain is endemic in several regions, as the potential origin of the outbreak.<\/p>\n
In May, scientists from Malbran Institute, Argentina\u2019s leading center for infectious diseases, traveled to Ushuaia to determine whether rodents in the area carried the rare respiratory disease.<\/p>\n
Scientists from the institute will next travel to Mendoza to conduct further investigations with experts from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from June 8 to 12, the health ministry said.<\/p>\n
Results from over 100 rodents captured in Tierra del Fuego in May were still being analyzed, the statement added.<\/p>\n
Hantavirus is endemic in several Argentine provinces, though not in Mendoza.<\/p>\n
The sites for the new study \u201cwere selected on the basis of ecological and eco-epidemiological criteria\u201d linked to rodent habits, the ministry said.<\/p>\n
According to the University of Mendoza, the province \u201ccurrently has no confirmed local circulation of the Andes virus.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there is \u201ca potential presence of the reservoir rodent,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Tierra del Fuego has meanwhile not had a case of hantavirus since its reporting became mandatory 30 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Argentina will expand its search for hantavirus-carrying rodents to western Mendoza province as part of an investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,1042,60,116117],"class_list":["post-485382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-mna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}