90-Second Read: Evacuations begin for Hantavirus-hit cruise ship, with Americans to be quarantined in Nebraska

The first passengers to be evacuated from the Hantavirus-hit cruise ship now anchored off Spain's Canary Islands arrived Sunday afternoon in Madrid, where they were being taken to a military hospital. None of the more than 140 people on the Hondius has shown symptoms of the virus, officials from Spain's health ministry, WHO and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said. Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with Hantavirus, which can cause life-threatening illness. Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn't easily transmitted between people.

Americans on board will be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska. British Army medics have parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of Hantavirus. Meanwhile, a Spanish woman in the southeastern province of Alicante suspected of being infected tested negative for Hantavirus, Spanish health authorities said Saturday. A Dutch plane was due to depart with Germans, Belgians and Greeks, while an American plane was expected to reach Tenerife around 5:30 p.m.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak. Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's top epidemiologist, said that a number of other flights were expected to arrive Sunday, including ones to repatriate passengers to Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The expected sailing time to Rotterdam is around five days, the cruise company said. Norway has sent an ambulance plane to Tenerife with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.

The five French passengers being repatriated Sunday will be hospitalized for 72 hours for monitoring, after which they will quarantine at home for 45 days, France's Foreign Ministry said. The woman was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship. Authorities have said the passengers and crew members disembarking will be checked for symptoms, have no contact with the local population and will only be taken off the ship once evacuation flights are ready to fly them to their destinations.