‘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 for birds may have cost him his life.

The 70-year-old man and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, were on a five-month trip to South America. They first landed in Argentina on Nov. 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.

They co-authored a study on pink-footed geese in the Dutch ornithological magazine Het Vogeljaar in 1984 and went on adventures across the world, including an “unforgettable” private 12-day birdwatching and wildlife tour in Sri Lanka in 2013 — where the couple raved about spotting a rare Serendib Scops Owl.

When the Schilperoords returned to Argentina on March 27, they visited a landfill four miles outside the city of Ushuaia.

Here’s the latest on the deadly hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship:

The spot, overrun with trash, is avoided like the plague by its residents, but serves as a pilgrimage point for birdwatchers from all over the world in search of a rare creature — the white-throated caracara, nicknamed Darwin’s caracara after famed evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin, the first to collect it.

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.

“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.

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. On April 6, Leo reported having a fever, headache, stomach pain and diarrhea. He died on the ship five days later.

Mirjam got off the ship, along with Leo’s body, on April 24, during a planned stop on the Atlantic island of Santa Helena. She flew to Johannesburg in South Africa and transferred on a KLM flight bound for the Netherlands but never made it. The crew found her too sick to fly and removed her. She collapsed at the airport and died the next day.

“Like birds in flight,” read one of the obituaries published in Dutch in the April issue of the Haulerwijk magazine. “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. They include two New Jersey residents.