ENDEMIC AREA
The region known as the Andean area comprises municipalities and communities ranging from middle developed urban centers to small villages without definite limits with rural areas. Cholila is one of this rural areas located in the southern part of Chubut province, at the foothill of Cordillera de los Andes [Andean Mountains] and inserted in the midst of a large lake system where. This locality is one of the hantavirus-endemic areas in Argentina. The largest amount of Hantavirus case reports came from the south part of this region, a strip of 6000 Km2 between the south of Rio Negro province and the northeast of Chubut province.

Cholila's population is little over 2000 inhabitants distributed among four valleys: el Blanco, el Rincón, el Cajón and Villa Lago Rivadavia. The climate is cold, summers are dry and winters are rainy concentrating the heaviest amount of 800 millimeters average annual rainfall, most of which is in the form of snow.

This region is abundant in pastures, an area where livestock activity is traditionally developed.

MUNDO SANO's ACTION
There are still many questions unanswered as to the several social and biological aspects favoring the hantavirus infection and the emergence of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

Which is the hantavirus dynamics in an endemic area? Which is the degree of association existing between the variations in populations of reservoir rodent and the outbreaks of hantavirus cases? Will the previous knowledge on these issues predict high risk space-time situations?

In order to look for answers to these questions and to elaborate a surveillance model based on timely and rational preventive and control measures, Mundo Sano Foundation opened its operation center with the purpose of carrying out research activities oriented towards the study of epidemiological and ecological patterns related to hantavirus in Cholila.