Ship crew given SARS all-clear
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Crew were taken off the ship Sunday for further checks at a hospital. After four hours they were given the all-clear.
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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Ten sailors from a Malaysian cargo ship thought to have contracted SARS have been discharged from a Hong Kong hospital after they were given a clean bill of health.
Port and medical authorities rushed the crew members to hospital after the ship made an emergency stop in the Chinese territory on Sunday after 10 of its 24 crew had developed SARS-like symptoms.
The ship is a Malaysian-registered 9,025-ton chemical cargo vessel, the Bunga Melawis Satu.
"The sailors are in very good health," Princess Margaret Hospital Chief executive Lili Chiu Lei-lei was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post newspaper.
"They showed no symptoms of SARS at all. They don't have fever and results of blood tests and chest X-rays were negative."
Wearing full-body protective clothing, medical staff boarded the vessel shortly after it anchored in Hong Kong. Though doctors did not detect a fever in any crew memberthey were all sent to hospital as a precaution.
The sailors, of Indian origin, had been complaining of fever, coughs and aching joints -- symptoms of the deadly SARS virus -- while at sea.
The ship, now anchored off Hong Kong's Lamma Island, had departed from Bangkok, Thailand on April 28 bound for the southern Chinese port of Huangpu in Guangzhou.
It is also believed to have visited several other ports in the region including Singapore.
Hong Kong received the ship's distress call Friday, when it was 100 nautical miles southeast of the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
Though the ship was advised to make for the nearest port, the vessel decided to head for Hong Kong which, bound by international regulations, allowed it to anchor.
There have been a total of 1,629 cases in the former British colony while 184 people have died from SARS.
