The South Atlantic promises crystalline isolation. But the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius—an expedition vessel carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 nations—harbored something else entirely between the Southern Cone and Antarctica 1, 2. An invisible passenger. Epidemiologists trace this outbreak directly to dry land, theorizing the index case inhaled aerosolized rodent excreta during a Southern Cone bird-watching excursion 1.
Al-Abri et al. (2026) studied this question.