90-Second Read: Did a bird-watching visit to this Argentine landfull spark the cruise ship Hantavirus outbreak? Experts raise doubts

Officials are investigating the origin of the outbreak of Hantavirus on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which departed Argentina's southernmost city, Ushuaia, last month. To date, there have been 11 reported cases of Hantavirus from the cruise ship outbreak, and nine of them have been confirmed; of these cases, three people have died. Scientists have identified the type responsible for the cruise outbreak as the Andes virus. A Dutch married couple were the first to show symptoms of Hantavirus.

In 2025 Hantavirus made headlines after actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, a concert pianist, were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, N.M., and Arakawa was determined to have died from an illness caused by Hantavirus. At a press conference on May 8, Juan Petrina, director of epidemiology for Tierra del Fuego, noted that there has never been a single recorded case of Hantavirus in the province. Petrina is not the only one challenging the focus on the Ushuaia garbage dump as the starting point of the cruise ship outbreak. Twelve days later, they visited Chile again before they returned to Argentina, where they drove from the province of Mendoza in the western central part of the country to the province of Misiones in the northeastern corner.

One theory that has gained prominence in media coverage holds that these individuals, who later died from the virus, picked it up while bird-watching at a landfill in Ushuaia before the cruise. The Andes virus is the only Hantavirus known to spread between people. The Dutch couple had been traveling in the Southern Cone of South America on a bird-watching trip starting late last November before they embarked on the cruise. What is more, the landfill is completely open and exposed to the elements, unlike the closed environments with limited ventilation that are typically associated with Hantavirus transmission.

For birders visiting Ushuaia, a trip to the relleno sanitario is a must because it regularly attracts uncommon species such as the White-throated Caracara, Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and Andean Condor. The landfill itself is fenced off to the public, so visitors must observe any avian activity from the side of the road, far from the garbage-and the birds. Its motto is " Fin del mundo, principio de todo, " which translates to "End of the world, beginning of everything." The landfill, called a relleno sanitario in Spanish, sits on the outskirts of the city and is well known to bird-watchers as an avian hotspot.