90-Second Read: ‘Patient Zero’ in deadly Hantavirus cruise ship outbreak was Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord

Patient zero in the cruise ship Hantavirus outbreak has been identified as ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose passion may have cost him his life. Patient Zero in the cruise ship Hantavirus outbreak has been identified as ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose passion for birds may have cost him his life. The Ushuaia landfill is where Argentinian authorities suspect the Dutch couple inhaled particles from the feces of long-tailed pygmy rice rats, which carry the feared Andes strain of the Hantavirus, the only form known to transmit from human to human. The 70-year-old man and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, were on a five-month trip to South America. When the Schilperoords returned to Argentina on March 27, they visited a landfill four miles outside the city of Ushuaia.

On April 6, Leo reported having a fever, headache, stomach pain and diarrhea. Mirjam got off the ship, along with Leo's body, on April 24, during a planned stop on the Atlantic island of Santa Helena. Like birds in flight," read one of the obituaries published in Dutch in the April issue of the Haulerwijk magazine. It is common for birdwatchers to visit landfills because there are many birds there," Gastón Bretti, a photographer and local guide told Ansa Latina. It's a mountain of waste that today far exceeds the limit initially established by the authorities," he said of the unsightly place.

27, and traveling through Chile, Uruguay and then back to Argentina in late March, where they went on a fateful birdwatching adventure. The couple — from Haulerwijk, a small village of 3,000 people in the Netherlands — were identified in obituaries published in their monthly village magazine. Four days later, on April 1, the couple embarked on the MV Hondius from Ushuaia, along with 112 others, many of whom were also bird watchers or scientists. We will miss you and the stories." At least seven Americans from the MV Hondius were on Mirjam's Airlink flight to Johannesburg on April 25 and are back in the United States.

She flew to Johannesburg in South Africa and transferred on a KLM flight bound for the Netherlands but never made it.