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Hantavirus in South and Central America

Cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome have been confirmed in South and Central America in the following nations: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Panama and Uruguay.  Information on cases in these individual countries may be available by contacting their ministry of health, or at the following sites:

PAHO homepage
This regional office of the World Health Organization tracks HPS, among many other diseases and health issues.

Ministerio de Salud, Chile (Chilean Ministry of Health)

"Hantavirus en la Argentina: Casos notificados hasta el 28-01-99"
From "Fuente: Informe Nº 231/17-02-99, Dirección de Epidemiología, Dirección Nacional de Medicina Sanitaria, Subsecretaría de Atención Comunitaria", at HealthIG.com. z
NOTE  this site is operated by a commercial entity.  The inclusion of a link to it in no way denotes any endorsement of either it or any information it may present.

In addition, rodents carrying viruses similar to the Sin Nombre virus found in the United States have also been found in Costa Rica and Mexico, but these particular hantaviruses have not been associated with disease in humans.

"Hantaviruses: A Global Disease Problem"
Specific information on the nature and history of hantaviruses in these areas is available online.
Connie Schmaljohn and Brian Hjelle
CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Outbreaks of HPS in South and Central America

Argentina
An outbreak of 18 cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) occurred in the southern Andean city of El Bolson, in the Rio Negro Province of Argentina, between September 22 and December 5, 1996. All of these cases displayed the common characteristics of HPS. However, some patients displayed a flushed facial appearance reminiscent of some viral hemorrhagic fevers.

Research performed on the lung and liver tissues of a patient who had died of the same disease in this region March of 1995, identified a new hantavirus, named Andes virus, by polymerase chain reaction.

All of the people who became sick during the outbreak were either permanent residents of the El Bolson area, or had been visitors to it between two and five weeks before their admission to the hospital. In addition, three doctors who treated patients with the disease became ill themselves.

One feature of this outbreak that makes it highly unusual for hantaviral-associated illnesses, is that the available data strongly suggests person-to-person transmission. Specifically, the majority of cases had had contact with another cases two to three weeks before becoming ill, and cases tended to become ill within two weeks of each other. This was especially clear in the case of a physician in Buenos Aires (well outside the El Bolson area) who became ill 27 days after taking care of an HPS patient who had been transferred from the outbreak area to Buenos Aires. Person-to-person transmission has never before been observed with any other type of hantavirus, either those causing HPS in North, Central and South America, or those causing HFRS in Europe and Asia.

If you wish to learn more about the possibility of person-to-person transmission of HPS in Argentina, you may wish to read "An Unusual Hantavirus Outbreak in Southern Argentina: Person-to-Person Transmission?", in the April-June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a CDC peer-review journal available online. The same issue is discussed in reference to HPS in the United States in "Hantavirus Transmission in the United States", appearing in the July-September, 1997 issue of EID.

Other articles covering HPS as a whole are accessible from CDC online as well. To find them, visit the NCID homepage and use their search engine. "HPS" and "hantavirus pulmonary syndrome" are useful search terms.

Additional data and prevention information concerning HPS in Central and South America is available from the Regional Office for the Americas, in the Pan American Health Organization, part of the World Health Organization.

Chile
Between August 1 and October 8, 1997, an outbreak of HPS occurred in Chile. A total of 25 cases were reported, including three family case clusters. Officials in Chile requested epidemiological assistance from Special Pathogens Branch at CDC, and a team left for the region on September 24 to investigate the outbreak.  Outbreak investigation findings have been published in "An Outbreak of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, Chile, 1997".  The article is available in the EID October - December 1998 issue. In addition, the initial report made by the team is available in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vo. 46, No. 40, and may be read online in Adobe Acrobat Reader (pdf) format.

CDC is only able to offer the information as listed above. As a U.S government agency, all of the data we have gathered during investigations is reported and available. However, we are limited by the fact that our disease control and surveillance assistance is provided outside our national borders only if formally requested by another nation, and only to the degree that assistance is actually provided. Therefore, our information on HPS outside of the U.S. is somewhat limited. If you are looking for more information on hantaviruses in Chile, please refer to the Ministerio de Salud, Chile (Chilean Ministry of Health).

Panama
In mid-January 1999, an outbreak of HPS occurred in Panama. The Special Pathogens Branch of the CDC and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) collaborated with health authorities in Panama to investigate the outbreak.

For more information on the outbreak investigation, please read the article "Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome -- Panama, 1999-2000", published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, March 17, 2000.

For specific information about this outbreak, please contact the Panama Ministry of Health at:
hantapanama@hotmail.com

 

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This page last reviewed Thursday, August 5, 2004

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