By Laura Sharman, Caitlin Danaher, Lex Harvey, CNN
(CNN) — Dozens of passengers were evacuated Sunday from the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak, which docked in the Spanish island of Tenerife carrying 147 people.
Passengers from the MV Hondius were seen being ferried in small boats from the cruise ship, which was anchored at the Port of Granadilla, to the island.
The carefully managed repatriation operation involving multiple nations went “according to plan,” Spain’s health minister Mónica García told a news conference at the port on Sunday.
The first day of evacuations involved 94 passengers of 19 nationalities, according to Spanish health authorities. More passengers are expected to depart Monday.
One of the 17 American passengers who was evacuated from the ship Sunday tested “mildly” positive for the Andes strain of the virus on a PCR test, while a second is showing mild symptoms, the US Department of Health and Human Services said.
The first presumed US hantavirus cases linked to the cruise come as the US passengers are en route to a facility in Nebraska. Both are traveling in the plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” HHS said Sunday.
CNN has reached out to HHS for more information.
Prior to disembarking, medical teams boarded the ship to run tests on passengers and crew, García said shortly before 8 a.m. local time.
After coming ashore, passengers filed onto waiting buses to be taken to the airport. From there, they were evacuated to their home countries.
Since the vessel departed Argentina last month, the deaths of three people have been linked to hantavirus -–– a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rodents’ urine or feces –– while others have been evacuated from the ship for medical treatment.
Experts have sought to assuage fears of a new pandemic, with World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressing the virus is “not another Covid-19” and the risk to the public remains low.
An official at the US Department of Health and Human Services said Saturday that the current assessment is that the risk to the broader American public remains “extremely low.”
Local officials earlier said the ship would anchor at “the safest” distance from the dock, and passengers would be brought ashore by nationality in small boats with a maximum capacity of 10 people, according to the tour operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
Several nations, including the US, Spain, France, Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands, used aircraft to evacuate their nationals who were on the ship.
Flights evacuating the remaining passengers will depart for Australia and the Netherlands on Monday, Spain’s health ministry said.
The vessel will then sail to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with the remaining crew members aboard, the tour operator said, a voyage of about five days. After the crew have disembarked the ship will be disinfected.
“The sequence of disembarkation will be coordinated with arriving repatriation flights,” Oceanwide said, adding that passengers’ luggage would remain on the ship and be returned to them later.
A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said earlier that the 18 passengers heading for the United States, including a British national who resides there, will be transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is home to the National Quarantine Unit, a federally funded facility.
After briefly being assessed at the unit, the passengers will then be able to undergo home-based monitoring over the next 42 days, the official said, with monitoring expected to be at least daily.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said one of the five French nationals repatriated from Tenerife on Sunday showed symptoms of hantavirus while aboard the flight returning them to France.
“As a result, these five passengers were immediately placed in strict isolation until further notice,” Lecornu said on X.
They are receiving medical care and will undergo testing and a full health assessment, he said.
A plane carrying 14 Spanish passengers who had been aboard the hantavirus-hit liner landed at Torrejon de Ardoz military airport, east of the capital Madrid, on Sunday afternoon.
They were then taken to a military hospital, where they will stay in individual rooms with no visitors allowed, and will receive a PCR test upon arrival and another seven days later, Spain’s health ministry said.
The arrival of the cruise ship has caused tensions in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain, with the territory’s leader Fernando Clavijo, saying earlier in the week that he was opposed to the ship docking there.
Port workers in Tenerife have also held protests, voicing their concerns about a lack of communication about the potential risks.
The hantavirus outbreak was first reported to the World Health Organization on May 2 and remains a low risk to the general public, the WHO said.
CNN has contacted Ports of Tenerife and Clavijo’s office for comment.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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