Officials and experts in Argentina are scrambling to figure out if their country is the source of a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has gripped an Atlantic cruise. Argentina is consistently ranked by the World Health Organization as having the highest incidence of the rare, rat-borne disease in Latin America. And it's seeing a surge of hantavirus cases that many local public health researchers attribute to the accelerating effects of climate change. The Argentine Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025. That's roughly double the caseload recorded over the same period the previous year.

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A koala named Ellin sits inside a habitat at Palm Beach Zoo Conservation Society in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Cody Jackson)

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  • Updated

This photo provided by the Palm Beach Zoo Conservation Society Clearance shows a koala named Ellin and her newborn joey in a habitat at the Palm Beach Zoo Conservation Society in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (John Towey/Palm Beach Zoo Conservation Society via AP)