Officials in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province are challenging the national-health theory that an ongoing hantavirus outbreak linked to an Atlantic cruise ship began in Ushuaia, the gateway town for Antarctic travel, as questions persist about where the virus exposure occurred before two Dutch tourists boarded the vessel.
Provincial epidemiology director Juan Facundo Petrina said in a Friday press conference in Ushuaia that “I believe we are facing a smear campaign against this destination,” arguing that the outbreak is unlikely to have started in the province’s southern archipelago. He said federal officials did not contact local authorities at the outset and that they discovered the supposed Ushuaia connection through media coverage rather than through coordination with province health teams.
Petrina said Tierra del Fuego has never recorded a hantavirus case—let alone the Andes variant involved in the ship outbreak—contrasting the province’s record with other areas of Argentina where the virus has been detected. He also said the Dutch couple spent only two days in Tierra del Fuego during a four-month trip through Argentina and Chile, adding that the short stay “dramatically reduces the likelihood that the infection happened here.”
Petrina’s comments came as the Argentine Health Ministry has said it is sending experts from the Malbran Institute to investigate the Ushuaia landfill and nearby areas by trapping rats and testing them for the Andes strain. A ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity said nothing had changed in the federal focus on Ushuaia as the only place where investigators were being sent, while also saying the virus could have originated elsewhere in Argentina.
As of Friday, more than two days after the ministry announced the Malbran Institute effort, investigators had not arrived in Tierra del Fuego, Petrina and other officials said. When asked whether the ministry still favored the Ushuaia-origin theory, the anonymous ministry official said the work was still centered on Ushuaia and characterized the delay as normal for Argentina’s slow-moving bureaucracy, while Petrina said the province was waiting for national investigators to determine the “exact locations” for trapping and analysis.
Outside Tierra del Fuego, public-health experts said the investigation matters not only for resolving where exposure occurred, but also for guiding local protections if the Andes virus is circulating in particular areas. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who serves as editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and previously advised the Biden administration during the coronavirus pandemic, said in an interview that it is important to understand whether a more infectious local Andes-virus variant is present so residents can be warned and measures can be taken; she said that concern would rise if authorities had not yet started that process.
Tierra del Fuego officials and critics in the left-leaning province also linked the federal investigative delay to broader weakness in Argentina’s health system. Rubén Rafael, the former provincial health minister, said the system is weakened, contributing to a slow response, and he also warned that the global attention on Ushuaia and cruise travel could damage the local economy; he said “Ushuaia’s reputation as a tourist destination is suffering badly” and that reservations for next season could “honestly” plummet because people would fear exposure.
The federal inquiry is being complicated by the travelers’ itinerary and by the couple’s deaths, making it difficult to reconstruct their movements. The Argentine Health Ministry has said the Dutch couple, identified as the first passengers to be infected with the Andes variant, arrived in Argentina last November, driving across the country before making multiple border crossings between Argentina and Chile over months, and also traveling between Argentina and Uruguay in March before embarking on an Antarctic cruise from Ushuaia on April 1.
Chile and Uruguay have said, based on the virus incubation period described as up to eight weeks, that the couple could not have become infected while visiting their countries, according to the Health Ministry, though the governments did not provide further details. Many independent Argentine epidemiologists told AP that the outbreak most likely began in Patagonia’s woodlands—another major tourist destination where authorities have recorded hantavirus cases and where rats that can carry the Andes variant are said to be present—rather than in Ushuaia.
As the hunt for answers continues, investigators’ next steps—trapping and testing rodents around the Ushuaia trash heap—are expected to shed light on whether the Andes strain is circulating locally. For residents and officials in Tierra del Fuego, however, the delay and the continuing focus on Ushuaia have also become part of a reputational dispute over whether the province is being blamed without sufficient evidence.