Fu Youming, a college student in Beijing, Thursday left his dormitory for the first time in two weeks to have supper at a university dining hall after being in isolation.
He and nearly 400 fellow students in a dormitory compound in Northern Jiaotong University were discharged from quarantine Friday afternoon.
More than 10 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) cases had been reported in the building before it was sealed off on April 24. No new cases were found during the isolation period, said Wang Xiangping, the university's public-relations director.
Fu said all the isolated students had a party on Wednesday night, singing and dancing to celebrate their release.
"I have phoned my parents thousands of kilometers away to tell them the good news," said Fu. "The building has had lots of telephone calls, flowers and fresh fruit with best wishes from other students and teachers since we were quarantined," said Fu.
Quarantine measures were also lifted Friday at a residential building of Beijing's Central University of Finance and Economics, where some 38 families had been isolated since April 24.
So far, nearly 9,000 people have been released from isolation in Beijing.
But more than 17,000 people who had close contact with confirmed or suspected SARS patients are still under quarantine in the capital of 13 million people as it battles the SARS crisis.
(China Daily May 9, 2003)
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