Hantavirus disease survivors Isabel Diaz (left) and her father Victor Diaz, identified by health authorities as patient zero during the 2018-19 outbreak that killed 11 people, including her mother and his wife, pose at their farm in the La Rinconada area, near Epuyen, Chubut Province, Argentina, on May 9. JUAN MABROMATA/AFP
Mailen Valle lost her father and two sisters during a hantavirus outbreak more than seven years ago in Epuyen, a village in Argentina's Patagonia region.
With the recent hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, hard memories have resurfaced for the 33-year-old.
"Losing my dad and my two sisters in less than a month… Nobody was prepared to see how, in a matter of days, a family table was left empty," she said.
While the outbreak onboard the ship has left three people dead, it has yet to surpass the Epuyen outbreak, which recorded 34 cases and 11 fatalities between December 2018 and March 2019 in the town of 2,400 residents, situated in a part of the Andes where hantavirus is endemic.
