PHOTO: ‘Patient Zero’ Who Died in Hantavirus Outbreak Had Visited Rat-Infested Argentine Landfill in ‘the City at the End of the World’

A man from the Netherlands who died during the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship has been identified.

“Patient Zero” was 70-year-old ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, who was with his wife, 69-year-old Mirjam Schilperoord, on the extended trip to South America where they were bird-watching, the New York Post reported Saturday.

The bird-watching couple were in Argentina in late March to visit a landfill a few miles outside the city of Ushuaia where people from all over the world go hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare white-throated caracara.

Ushuaia is considered the southern-most city on earth, earning it the nickname “The City at the End of the World.”

“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