Quest for a rare bird, a landfill visit, a deadly outbreak: How Leo Schilperoord became hantavirus 'patient zero'

Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose lifelong quest for the rare and the beautiful ended in a global health emergency, has been identified as patient zero in the deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the expedition cruise ship MV Hondius, according to Argentine authorities.

Authorities believe the 70-year-old and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, contracted the virus during a birdwatching visit to a landfill outside Ushuaia in late March.





The couple, from Haulerwijk, had spent five months traveling across South America. They first arrived in Argentina on November 27 before traveling through Chile and Uruguay and returning to Argentina for another birdwatching trip.

Longtime bird enthusiasts, the Schilperoords co-authored a study on pink-footed geese in the Dutch ornithological magazine Het Vogeljaar in 1984. Their travels also took them to Sri Lanka in 2013, where they joined a private birdwatching and wildlife tour and spotted the rare Serendib Scops Owl.

On March 27, the couple visited a landfill outside Ushuaia that attracts birdwatchers searching for the white-throated caracara, also known as Darwin’s caracara after Charles Darwin.

Authorities suspect the couple inhaled virus particles from the feces of long-tailed pygmy rice rats carrying the Andes strain of hantavirus, the only known form capable of spreading from person to person.

“It is common for birdwatchers to visit landfills because there are many birds there,” photographer and local guide Gastón Bretti told Ansa Latina, adding, “It’s a mountain of waste that today far exceeds the limit initially established by the authorities,” as quoted by the New York Post.

Four days later, the couple boarded the MV Hondius in Ushuaia on April 1 along with more than 100 passengers, many of them birdwatchers and scientists.

Leo Schilperoord developed symptoms including fever, headache, stomach pain and diarrhea on April 6 and died on board five days later.

Mirjam Schilperoord disembarked from the ship on April 24 during a scheduled stop on the Atlantic island of Saint Helena along 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 had been carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries when a cluster of severe respiratory illnesses was first reported to the World Health Organisation on May 2. By then, 34 passengers had already disembarked on Atlantic islands before the vessel continued toward Cape Verde.

The evacuation operation later resulted in 94 people being repatriated to their home countries, 41 days after the ship departed southern Argentina and nine days after the first positive hantavirus test result.

The MV Hondius later departed from Tenerife for the Netherlands after the remaining passengers and several crew members were evacuated.

“Like birds in flight,” one obituary published in the Haulerwijk village magazine read. “We will miss you and the stories.”