GRANADILLA DE ABONA, Spain- Occupants of a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began leaving the vessel for their repatriation in Spain's Canary Islands on Sunday.

Three passengers from the MV Hondius — a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman — have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents.

No vaccines or specific treatments exist for hantavirus, which is endemic in Argentina, where the ship departed in April.

However, health officials have emphasized that the risk for global public health is low and played down comparisons to a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The final flight to evacuate most of the ship's nearly 150 passengers and crew would leave for Australia on Monday, before the ship continues to the Netherlands, Spain's Health Minister Monica Garcia said.

Passengers wearing blue medical suits began disembarking the Dutch-flagged vessel onto smaller boats to reach the port of Granadilla on Tenerife, Agence France-Presse journalists saw.

The evacuees then boarded a bus for their transfer to Tenerife South Airport, where their repatriation flights were due to take off.

"The disembarkation of the passengers and the Spanish crew member has started," the Health Ministry confirmed on Telegram.

The evacuees changed into new protective equipment before boarding their repatriation flight, the first of which left carrying 14 Spaniards who will observe quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid.

"The operation is going very well," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the port.

Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and United States citizens were also planned for Sunday, Garcia said.

Regional authorities have warned that the operation must be completed by Monday, when adverse weather conditions will force the ship to leave.

The Canary Islands' regional authorities have consistently resisted taking in the ship, which was only authorized to anchor offshore instead of docking in the port.

However, all passengers are asymptomatic and underwent a medical assessment before their disembarkation, Garcia told reporters shortly before the operation began.

Spanish authorities have insisted there will be no contact with the local population in Tenerife.

AFP journalists at Granadilla saw white tents erected along the quay and that the police, some in protective medical suits, had sealed off part of the small industrial port.

Spain "is doing what it must do, with technical and scientific rigor and full transparency, with institutional loyalty and with international cooperation", Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday.

The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person — the Andes virus — has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fueling international concern.

The WHO said on Friday that it had confirmed six cases out of eight suspected ones. There are no suspected cases remaining on the ship.

The agency believes the first infection occurred before the start of the expedition, followed by transmission between humans onboard the vessel.

Health authorities in several countries have been tracking passengers who had already disembarked and anyone who may have come into contact with them.

Agencies via Xinhua