hot zone. Researchers seek genetic data on hantavirus in El Bolson, Argentina.
Researchers in Argentina may have found the first known cases of transmission of hantavirus, an often lethal from person to person infectious agent normally transmitted by rodents. The cases are part of an epidemic since September and near the Andean city of El Bolson, where twenty people were infected with hantavirus, half died. The failure of the lung caused by the virus was identified as a major threat to health in 1992 after it caused a wave of death in the American Southwest.
Argentine authorities have taken "several cases that are incredibly difficult to explain, except per person -to spread," said the expert from hantavirus Brian Hjelle of the University of New Mexico, who recently visited the outbreak area. Most striking involves a girl of 13 who had been near the area of disease, but may have picked up the virus after joining her parents, both of whom had been infected in El Bolson. Researchers at the Institute Carlos G. Malbran in Buenos Aires, a major center of the country for research in infectious diseases, published in Medicina , an Argentine newspaper, additional data suggesting that the virus may have been transmitted from person to person.
as disturbing as the reports are, the researchers have no biological evidence of human to human spread. To get a better idea about this, Hjelle and CJ Peters - Head of the Special Branch of pathogens in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who visited Argentina last month - each hoping to get " fingerprinting "DNA of the local strains of the virus and follow the route of infection. Hjelle nor nor Peters scored DNA samples to date, however.
A US researcher suggests that the Argentines were distracted by a reorganization of the government in December which led to cuts and net budgetary layoffs in Malbran. Elsa Segura, director of Malbran confirms that the reorganization of the government has taken an emotional toll. But she said the collaboration with CDC is moving forward and that the search for hantavirus has not been idle.
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