PRAIA, Cape Verde (AP) — Two patients with hantavirus and one suspected of infection were evacuated Wednesday from a cruise ship at the center of a deadly outbreak, the U.N. health agency said. The ship then departed Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board — isolated in their cabins — and headed to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear evacuating three patients, including the ship’s British doctor. Two of the patients arrived at Amsterdam’s airport Wednesday evening and were taken to separate hospitals.

Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organization said. Of eight recorded cases, five were confirmed by laboratory testing.

Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though that is rare, according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.

Health officials in Europe and Africa are trying to identify people who may have had contact with people who earlier left the ship, which departed April 1 from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.

Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government’s leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.

They said the couple visited a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing.

Officials say those still on board show no symptoms

The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated Wednesday were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national. WHO said testing in Senegal confirmed that two of the evacuees were infected with hantavirus.

Two of the evacuees were in “serious condition,” Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on May 2.