Andes virus associated with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in northern Argentina and determination of the precise site of infection

Abstract

Hantaviruspulmonary syndrome (HPS) hasbeen documented in the Salta and Jujuy provincesof northern Argentina since 1991 and 1997, respectively, accounting for almost 50% of the casesof HPS reported in thiscountry. Andes(AND) virus, specifically the AND virusNort lineage, wasprevious ly associated with human disease in this region. Genetic analysis of viral medium RNA segments obtained from 18 HPS cases showed the existence of three AND virus Nort sublineages co-circulating in these two provinces. They showed a nucleotide sequence diversity of up to 11.1% between the sublineages. The putative site of infection of one of these cases (Sal3/97) was determined. A 100% nucleotide sequence identity was observed between the viral sequence found in patient Sal3/97 and in two virus-positive Oligoryzomys chacoensis captured in the same place where the case lived and worked. These results indicated the putative site of infection and identified thisrodent speciesasthe source of infection.