A hantavirus outbreak was recorded on the transatlantic cruise ship MV Hondius which has already claimed the lives of three people and prompted emergency medical evacuations to hospitals in South Africa and Europe. Given this, the WHO alert was activated.
This caused concern in the area, since the cruise covers the route between Ushuaia and Cape Verde. The disease is transmitted through rodents and contact with their urine, feces or saliva. In Paraguay, 196 confirmed cases of hantavirus have been registered since 2013 until epidemiological week 16 of 2026, according to data from the National Directorate of Health Surveillance (DNVS), of which three confirmed cases correspond to this year.
He epidemiologist Guillermo Sequera He explained that the hantavirus is not rare for Paraguay, in addition to the fact that the lethality was much higher before, considering that half of the detected cases died; However, it decreased thanks to the fact that health services know how to detect and treat it.
“Hantavirus is already suspected from the beginning, so the support that can be given to these casesrefer to Asunción if they need intensive care, there is no longer any doubt and the fatality rate is much lower than it was before,” he said.
Read more: Hantavirus cases in Paraguay: where and who are the most affected?
Hantavirus cases in Paraguay: how to detect them?
He added that The cases registered in Paraguay are concentrated in the Chacomainly in the department of Boquerón, as well as what is recorded in Concepción.
He explained that it is transmitted through the calomis species, which usually roams the warehouses where the silos are, or the ranches in the Chaco, where the climate is often drier, especially in winterand after defecating or urinating, these feces and urine dry out, which generate an aerosol effect that transmits the disease.
“One can go in to clean that and clean it without a mask, generally in periods where there is very little humidity, where it rains little, where the environment is drier, which is generally winter, the Chaco is quite dry, there When generally lifting these sheds to clean, when sweeping, without prior moistening, these aerosols are raised. “They are in the defecation of animals or in the pee, in the urine, and there we inhale, these are the cases that occur mainly in working men,” he indicated.
He explained that These are the cases that begin with respiratory symptomswhich at first seem very nonspecific, since the symptoms are a headache and then the main respiratory problem, closely related to a significant pulmonary insufficiency.
Read more: Hantavirus in humans: symptoms, contagion and what to do if suspected
Hantavirus of the Americas
He clarified that the hantavirus of the Americas is very different from the hantavirus known in Asiasince it took the name of a river in South Korea, where it originates and whose main picture is more of a hemorrhagic and renal syndrome, totally different from the one now registered.
He remembered that The disease is endemic in the Americas, mainly in Argentinawhere a significant outbreak was even reported in Chubut in 2019, as well as in Chile, Bolivia, Brazil and almost all South American countries. There are also some cases in Central America and in the Mississippi area of the United States.
He added that the cases that are registered are already serious, but that There could be more cases that are not recorded, since many are mildso they are not notified, since many times they do not even go to the doctor.
“If we do a serological survey in Chaco, the area in Neuland, or in the Boquerón area, the immune response to people who have contact with hantavirus, We are going to find that many people had it and did not find out. In Argentina there are reports, in Chile there are reports of prevalence in small towns that are endemic, that 30%, 40% of the population had contact with that virus,” he said.
Read more: Health alert: consultations for respiratory symptoms jump 20% and there are 66 deaths
Hantavirus endemic area
He said that any symptom is not going to be thought of as hantavirus, that is why it is important determine other conditions, such as geographic areaso he considered that with the construction of the bioceanic route, once it is completed, this area would be increasingly populated, there would be more commercial movement, so more cases could be registered.
“It starts very specifically with fever, headaches, maybe a little nausea, general weakness, and from there like juka’a, shortness of breath, the fever continues, dehydration, then they are generally hospitalized and up to that point it can be anything. A lot depends on the doctor in front asking where it comes from, what it doesnot so much because of the symptoms, but think epidemiologically”, he noted.
