Mailen Valle lost her father and two sisters during a hantavirus outbreak more than seven years ago in Epuy\u00e9n, a village in Argentina’s Patagonia region.<\/p>\n
With the recent hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius<\/em> cruise ship, hard memories have resurfaced for the 33-year-old.<\/p>\n \u00abLosing my dad and my two sisters in less than a month…\u00bb she told AFP, trailing off.<\/p>\n Her voice broke and she laughed nervously, opting to read from a prepared statement because she\u00a0knew it would be hard to speak.<\/p>\n \u00abNobody was prepared to see how, in a matter of days, a family table was left empty,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n While the Hondius<\/em> outbreak has left three people dead, it has yet to surpass the Epuy\u00e9n outbreak, which recorded 34 cases and 11 fatalities between December 2018 and March 2019 in the town of 2,400 residents, situated in a part of the Andes where hantavirus is endemic.<\/p>\n Mailen’s father, Aldo Valle, came down with it after attending a birthday party.<\/p>\n \u00abThe person with the virus was just sitting at the same table as my dad. And at that table there were several people who got infected, and people died,\u00bb Mailen recalled.<\/p>\n The wake for Valle was another locus of infection, where all three of his daughters got sick.<\/p>\n One sister died \u00abwithin hours\u00bb of showing symptoms, while for the other, \u00abwe had to take her to the cemetery without a wake,\u00bb Mailen said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pre-Covid isolation<\/strong><\/p>\n The variant of the hantavirus suspected in both outbreaks is transmitted through the droppings, saliva and urine of the Andean mouse.<\/p>\n Jorge D\u00edaz, an epidemiologist with Chubut province’s health department who worked on the Epuy\u00e9n hantavirus outbreak, told AFP that \u00abwe knew very little about the disease\u00bb in 2018.<\/p>\n Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus was first discovered in 1996 in the neighbouring town of El Bols\u00f3n, and it was later found to have happened in Epuy\u00e9n.<\/p>\n \u00abWe implemented quarantine, which required those who made contact with a positive case to isolate for 45 days,\u00bb D\u00edaz explained.<\/p>\n About 100 people ended up undergoing the quarantine process in a display that would foreshadow the Covid-19 pandemic that broke out a year later.<\/p>\n The approach, dubbed \u00abselective isolation,\u00bb marked a shift in the epidemiological response, and now \u00abeach time there is a case of [Andes] hantavirus, isolation is ordered or recommended.\u00bb<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ‘One thing after another’<\/strong><\/p>\n Residents in Patagonia know how to protect themselves from the virus, which they refer to as \u00abthe hanta,\u00bb by airing out sheds and cleaning areas with bleach.<\/p>\n But the human transmission of the Epuy\u00e9n outbreak changed the scale of the fight, as one could get infected from their neighbour just as easily as from an Andean mouse.<\/p>\n Mailen remembers the stigma. \u00abWe felt very discriminated against,\u00bb she said.<\/p>\n Others recall being banned from shops in nearby towns.<\/p>\n Isabel D\u00edaz, 53, survived the outbreak with a different stigma \u2013\u00a0her father, V\u00edctor D\u00edaz, was labelled \u00abpatient zero,\u00bb and attended the birthday party while displaying the early symptoms of hantavirus.<\/p>\n \u00abPeople looked poorly at my father. It’s not his fault he got sick,\u00bb she told AFP, her eyes welling up.<\/p>\n \u00abNobody chooses to get sick, much less infect others, much less lose a mother.\u00bb<\/p>\n Isabel got sick from her father’s hantavirus case, as well as her mother. \u00abShe was the sixth patient\u00bb of the eleven who died, she said.<\/p>\n Her father, for his part, recalled how it felt to come down with hantavirus, causing body aches and a bitter taste that even made sipping water unpleasant.<\/p>\n \u00abIt started with a feeling of weakness. I didn’t feel like eating. And I started to get purple spots,\u00bb he said. \u00abThat same day, I lost consciousness.\u00bb<\/p>\n In the years since the hantavirus outbreak, Epuy\u00e9n has endured the Covid-19 pandemic and major wildfires in 2025 and 2026, permanently changing the landscape.<\/p>\n \u00abIt’s one thing after another,\u00bb V\u00edctor said, laughing.<\/p>\n \u00abNo one is going to tell us what it means to live life and keep moving forward,\u00bb Isabel D\u00edaz added.<\/p>\n by Leila Macor, AFP<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nrelated news<\/h6>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n