Search for a rare bird, a visit to a garbage dump, a deadly outbreak: How Leo Schilberward became ‘patient zero’ of Hantavirus – The

Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilberwoerd, whose lifelong search for the rare and beautiful ended in a global health emergency, has been identified as patient zero in the deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, according to Argentine authorities.Authorities believe the 70-year-old and his wife, Miriam Schilberward, 69, contracted the virus during a bird-watching visit to a landfill outside Ushuaia in late March.

The couple, from Holerwick, spent five months traveling through South America. They first arrived in Argentina on 27 November before traveling through Chile and Uruguay and returning to Argentina for another bird watching trip.A long-time bird lover, the Schilberwords co-authored a study on pink-footed geese in the Dutch ornithological journal Het Vogeljaar in 1984.

Their travels also took them to Sri Lanka in 2013, where they joined a private bird and wildlife watching tour and discovered the rare Serendip Scops Owl.On March 27, the couple visited a landfill outside Ushuaia that attracts bird watchers searching for the white-throated caracara, also known as Darwin’s caracara after Charles Darwin.Authorities suspect that the couple inhaled virus particles from the feces of dwarf long-tailed rice mice that carry the Andean Hantavirus strain, the only known form capable of spreading from person to person.

“It is common for bird watchers to visit landfills because there are many birds,” photographer and local guide Gaston Preti told ANSA Latina news agency, adding: “It is a mountain of waste that today far exceeds the limit initially set by the authorities,” the New York Post reported.Four days later, the couple boarded the MV Hondius in Ushuaia on April 1 with more than 100 passengers, many of them bird watchers and scientists.Leo Schilberward developed symptoms including fever, headache, stomach pain, and diarrhea on April 6 and died on board five days later.Miriam Schilberwoard disembarked the ship on April 24 during a scheduled stop on the Atlantic island of St. Helena with her husband’s body. She later traveled to Johannesburg on an Airlink flight and was preparing to board a KLM flight to the Netherlands when airport staff found her too ill to continue.

She collapsed at the airport and died the next day.The MV Hondius was carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of acute respiratory illnesses was first reported to the World Health Organization on May 2. By then, 34 passengers had already disembarked on the Atlantic islands before the ship continued towards Cape Verde.The evacuation later resulted in 94 people being returned to their home countries, 41 days after the ship left southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive test result for Hantavirus.The MV Hondius later departed from Tenerife for the Netherlands after the remaining passengers and several crew members were evacuated.“Like a bird in flight,” said an obituary published in the Holrowijk Village Journal. “We will miss you and the stories.”