In an attempt to see the uncommon Darwin's caracara bird, Dutch ornithologist Leo Schilperoord and his wife Mirjam Schilperoord visited a dump on March 27 that was overrun by trash and avoided by even locals. According to a report, the couple would later lose their lives as a result of the visit.
Leo Schilperoord, 70, has been designated as "patient zero" after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported eight hantavirus cases, including three fatalities, according to the New York Post.
The Schilperoords arrived in Argentina in November, travelled to Chile and Uruguay during their five-month journey around South America, and returned to Argentina in late March. The ornithologists made the decision to go to a landfill that is regarded as a birdwatcher's pilgrimage site four miles outside of Ushuaia.
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"It's a mountain of waste that today far exceeds the limit initially established by the authorities," local guide and photographer Gaston Bretti told Ansa Latina.
The Schilperoords were hoping to catch a glimpse of the white-throated caracara, so named because it was discovered by naturalist Charles Darwin.
According to the New York Post, this is where they breathed in particles from the excrement of long-tailed pygmy rice rats, who are carriers of the Andes type of hantavirus.
This was the start of a series of health scares. Leo Schilperoord reported experiencing fever, headache, diarrhoea, and stomach pain on April 6, five days after boarding the MV Hondius from Ushuaia. Five days later, he passed away.
On April 24, while on a call at the island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic, Mirjam Schilperoord, who was now feeling ill herself, got off the ship. She was scheduled to join a KLM flight to the Netherlands after travelling to Johannesburg, South Africa, but the crew decided she was too ill to fly, so they evacuated her.
A day later, she passed away in the hospital, and on May 4, the hantavirus was identified. The couple never went back to their 3,000-person community.
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After rigorous testing, the MV Hondius eventually moored at Spain's Canary Islands on Sunday to carry out a difficult repatriation operation. Nineteen different countries of passengers and crew were flown out. With a skeleton crew, the ship is expected to leave for the Netherlands at 7 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) after refuelling.
The top health authority of the United Nations and certain national health authorities have reported eight confirmed cases and two "probable" cases, affecting citizens of six nations. Two of the three fatalities have been identified as having the hantavirus, and one is likely to have had it.
Health officials have rejected analogies to the COVID-19 outbreak and said that there is little risk to global public health.
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