The hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius has been upstaged in world health news by the Ebola outbreak in the Congo, but the hantavirus investigation is far from over.
Health officials in Argentina were seen dutifully trapping hundreds of forest rats for examination this week, with an eye toward conclusively establishing where the disease aboard the Hondius came from.
The most widely-discussed theory of the hantavirus outbreak’s origin is that a pair of elderly Dutch birdwatchers named Leo and Mirjam Schilperoord contracted the hantavirus while hunting for birds at a massive landfill near the town of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, in late March.
Leo Schilperoord became ill five days after putting out to sea aboard the Hondius and died five days after that. Mirjam got off the boat with her husband’s body at the island of St. Helena on April 24, flew to
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