Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost city, has long basked in the romantic glow of being called 'The End of the World' - a gateway to Antarctica and Patagonia's dramatic beauty. But lately, it's been grappling with a less flattering nickname: 'Ground Zero for That Hantavirus Outbreak on the Dutch Cruise Ship MV Hondius.'
The cruise ship, now anchored in Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands, began its journey on 1 April in Ushuaia, over 6,000 miles away. On board were 114 passengers and 61 crew from 22 countries. The virus is believed to have come aboard there, but the precise origin - and who carried it - remains a mystery, fueling intense speculation in parts of the media.
One theory suggests a passenger may have been infected at a landfill site on Ushuaia's outskirts, where tourists watch birds and waste attracts rats. Argentinian officials speaking anonymously have floated this as their leading hypothesis. Locally, that suggestion has gone over about as well as a penguin in a desert.
"In Tierra del Fuego we have no record of hantavirus cases in our history," said Juan Facundo Petrina, the province's Director General of Epidemiology and Environmental Health. "Since 1996 - when the National Surveillance System included it among mandatory reporting diseases - we haven't had a single case." Petrina, who took his post in 2021 during the pandemic, has repeated this in every press conference and interview, stressing that the endemic zone lies over 1,500 km (930 miles) to the north. "We do not have the subspecies of the long-tailed mouse [which transmits the disease], nor the same climatic conditions," he added. "And if rodents were to start moving, they'd face crossing the Strait of Magellan - an additional difficulty, beyond the climate."
While many experts agree infection likely didn't occur in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina's national government has dispatched a team of experts to check for traces of hantavirus or the long-tailed mouse. The team will trap rats at the landfill and test them. But two days after the announcement, the experts have yet to arrive. When the BBC visited, birds circled the waste piles and there was no sign of an active investigation.
Epidemiologist Eduardo López, head of the Department of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital in Buenos Aires, said further study is necessary because ecosystems are changing. "For example, the long-tailed pygmy rice rat, whose original habitat was the Patagonian Andes and north-western Argentina, can now be found in the province of Buenos Aires alongside other rodents that transmit the disease."
The urgency isn't just scientific - it's economic. Tierra del Fuego is Argentina's youngest and least populated province, with tourism a key income source. Juan Manuel Pavlov of the Fuegian Tourism Institute noted that over 95% of boats to Antarctica leave from the port. "With more than 500 port calls a year, the cruise industry is fundamental." So far, despite a surge in inquiries, there have been no official cruise cancellations, but any longer-term impact may take months to emerge.
At Ushuaia's port, life continues as normal. Tourists stroll and gather for shorter excursions. "The absence of cases here is very reassuring," said Adonis Carvajal, a tour operator. "People ask whether there are infections, and the fact there are no reports of sick people here brings calm." Among visitors, David Bomparp from Venezuela arrived with his partner, Daniela Sandoval, just days ago. "As far as we understood, nothing had been confirmed here, so we came without worrying," he said. Daniela added her mother was less relaxed: "She was sending me Instagram reels and links all night."
Health authorities are still trying to find where the infection originated. They believe one of the Dutch couple who contracted the virus and died are likely 'patient zero'. Officials have attempted to reconstruct their journey through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay using border records. Chilean and Uruguayan authorities say the couple didn't contract the virus there, based on the WHO's estimated incubation period of one to eight weeks. Petrina agreed they likely contracted it in Argentina, but probably two to four weeks before the cruise, perhaps in a mountainous region in Patagonia like Chubut, Neuquén or Río Negro.
The National Ministry of Health hasn't put forward a definitive theory, saying they cannot rule out Tierra del Fuego but noting no cases have ever been reported there. The evacuation of passengers and crew from the MV Hondius in Tenerife might yield clues, but for now, without the Dutch couple to fill in the gaps and officials unable to fully reconstruct their travels, many questions remain unanswered - leaving Ushuaia to insist, with some justification, that it's not the source of the problem.