Journalist cleared of SARS in Brazil

Brazilian health authorities have ruled out SARS as the disease that sent a British journalist to hospital last month.

Sally Jane Blower was admitted to hospital in April with a high fever, dry cough and other symptoms similar to those of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which has infected 7,700 people worldwide and killed at least 613.

Blower went to Brazil after a stay in Malaysia and a stopover in Singapore, where SARS cases have been reported. Reports of her admission to hospital sparked fears in Brazil of the virus.

After nine days she was released in good health and returned to Britain, but lab test results were not released until yesterday.

The Health Ministry said that a four-year-old Chinese boy who arrived in Brazil from China’s Guangdong province on March 27 was now the country’s only suspected SARS case.

Blower, 42, went to Brazil to cover the Formula 1 Grand Prix. She had arrived from Malaysia where the previous race had been held. She stopped over for two hours at an airport in Singapore.