90-Second Read: Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship arrives at Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands

Earlier, officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had said none of the more than 140 people who were then on the Hondius had shown symptoms of the virus. Three people have died since the outbreak began, and five people who left the ship earlier are infected with Hantavirus. Tedros and Spain's health and interior ministers are supervising the operation in Tenerife. Passengers were evacuated off the MV Hondius following its arrival in Tenerife, the largest island in the Spanish archipelago off the West African coast.

Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, and the disease is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Elsewhere, British Army medics parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of Hantavirus. Earlier, one of the five French passengers developed symptoms on their flight home, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in a statement, and all were put into strict isolation with plans to be tested.

The Americans would first be taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which has a federally funded quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus. The medical school also has a special unit for treating people with highly infectious diseases that was used early in the pandemic for COVID-19 patients and previously for Ebola patients. Japan's Foreign Ministry said a Japanese national arrived in Britain on a chartered flight arranged by the British government and will be under health monitoring by British authorities for up to 45 days. Norway sent an ambulance plane to the island with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.

The journey to Rotterdam takes about five days, the cruise company said. The WHO is recommending that passengers' home countries "have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility," said Maria van Kerkhove, the organization's top epidemiologist. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.