Open ecological, genomic and digital behavioural data resolve the 2026 MV Hondius Andes virus outbreak to the southern-Andean reservoir zone

The 2026 Andes virus (ANDV) outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship resulted in 11 confirmed cases and 3 deaths and raised questions regarding the origin of infection, with much media focus resting on a landfill in Tierra del Fuego. We evaluated competing exposure hypotheses by assembling open data on reservoir host occurrences, rodent serosurveys, and historical ANDV outbreaks along with the index case’s self-documented, publicly-posted citizen-science digital record of their movements. Historical outbreaks associated with human-to-human transmission were concentrated within a restricted region spanning southern Chile and adjacent western Argentina, coinciding with the distribution of the principal reservoir host, Oligoryzomys longicaudatus , and areas identified as elevated risk by multiple ecological and genetic models. The index case was documented within this transmission focus shortly before the putative exposure period. Together, our open data approach was able to rapidly locate initial exposure within the established ANDV transmission focus and develop scenarios to prioritise further epidemiological investigation.