Indian Health Minister Sushma Swaraj Thursday said that the first confirmed case of SARS in India was no longer "infected."

Though the samples of the marine engineer from Goa have tested positive for the virus, the patient is no longer infected, Swaraj told reporters in New Delhi.

"He had gone home after treatment. If the sample was not tested, he would not have known that he had SARS," Swaraj said, adding this showed testing reagent prepared by Indian scientists after getting primers from abroad can effectively test the virus.

She said, "No infection is left in him and the 10-day incubation period is over as far as the patient is concerned. But, he had come in contact with some people and for precautionary purposes, the patient and his family are in isolation."

Keeping this in mind, the government had also sent a National Institute of Communicable Diseases team to Goa so that people who had come in contact with the marine engineer are at least quarantined, Swaraj said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2003)