Hantavirus epidemic: the strain that attacks in the south is more aggressive than that which strikes the north – 01/15/2019

"The Andean strain, that circulating in the South, is much more aggressive than the North and it is also faster in terms of consequences once it is infected, but for now the endemic is usual, although it remains to be seen whether the virus has mutated and whether it is actually transmitted from person to person, which is being studied at the Malbrán Institute ", told TN the disease specialist infectious Raúl Ruvinsky (MN 20373). "There is no effective medicine for those who contract the virus." And he emphasized the importance of early care when symptoms appear: "It can save many lives," he said.

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"We are in an alarming situation," said Tomás Orduna (MN 61528), a physician specializing in infectious diseases, who explained that in Argentina, there are four delineated regions, with well differentiated strains Andes virus, which is the one that circulates mainly in the country.

Not all strains of the virus are identical. And in the country circulate several different rodents. In this sense, the head of tropical medicine and traveler medicine of Muñiz hospital said: "In Patagonia, the South flows, in the region of Pampa, Lechiguana and La Plata, to the North , Oran and Bermejo, in addition to Laguna Negra (These are not the Andes, but another variety that we share with Bolivia) and Misiones el Lechiguana and Juquitiba (a variety imported from Brazil) ", a- he told Infobae.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State for Health, Adolfo Rubinstein, settled the affairs of Jujuy and Salta (a 28-year-old rural worker died today in this province) from what is happening to Epuyén. "The case of Jujuy has nothing to do with Epuyen's epidemic, which corresponds to a completely different path of infection." According to the official, the case of Jujuy corresponds to "a contagion of the environment, that is to say a direct contact with the urine or the excrement of an infected mouse". And about those in Salta (where there is a man hospitalized next to the deceased), he said that he had no other details.

He added: there are over 100 annual cases on average. In fact, last year in Buenos Aires, Salta and Jujuy were the largest number of cases. These are sporadic cases and environmental contagion caused by the inhalation of secretions of infected long-tailed mice, but this has nothing to do with cases in Epuyen where there has been an aggressive epidemic. "Because of the characteristics of the epidemic, we found that there was an index case in November and that all the infections corresponded to this case." Therefore, it is almost certain that there is had a human-to-human contagion.

For its part, the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI) has ensured that the situation in the city of Epuyen, in the Chubut region, is "unusual" and recognizes as the only antecedent the one that has been created in El Bolsón in the late 1990s, "because of the suspicion of human-to-human transmission as the main method of contagion."

"The variety that circulates in the North has no history of human-to-human transmission, the form of contagion is one that has always been known: through the feces and urine of the mouse to long tail, or its sting, "he said. The infectiologist Lilian Testón (MN 87307), coordinator of the epidemiology department of the Foundation of Infectious Studies Center (Funcei), was consulted on the first confirmed case in Jujuy and one death in Salta.

"Until today, we do not know if the virus that circulates in the south is going to have a different genetic characteristic Or it's the one that usually manifests itself in this region, "Orduna added in his statements.In Epuyen, the outbreak recorded 28 confirmed cases, of which 10 were fatal.One of the victims is a woman of Chilean nationality who was in Epuyén and died several days after being infected, a hundred people are "isolated from the airways" at home.These are people who have been in contact with one of the affected persons and must remain so for at least 30 days.