A ship berths at Ningbo Zhoushan port on Tuesday. Official data showed that Ningbo Zhoushan port handled cargo throughput of 193.34 million tons in January and February, a year-on-year increase of 18.4 percent. Photo:cnsphoto

Eleven Chinese crew members on a cargo ship at Zhoushan city, East China's Zhejiang Province, were reported to be imported COVID-19 infections from India, with all of them sent to hospital for treatment, while the nine other Chinese crew members remain on the ship for observation.

The cargo ship, Huayang Chaoyang, is registered in China's Hong Kong SAR, according to the announcement from the Zhoushan Health Commission. 

Since 2021, the cargo ship, which currently has 20 crew members, all Chinese, has docked at ports including Chittagong in Bangladesh, Kakinada in India, Singapore, and Xiamen in China. It is now docked at the Xinya shipyard in Zhoushan awaiting repairs.

The 11 new COVID-19 infections on the cargo ship were first reported by customs to the Zhoushan Health Commission. On Wednesday afternoon, after undergoing new checks and expert evaluation, the 11 Chinese crew were confirmed to be 10 confirmed cases and one asymptomatic case, according to the official WeChat account of the Zhoushan Health Commission on Thursday.

Zhoushan has launched an emergency response plan and carried out an epidemiological investigation of the ship. Control measures on close contacts and disinfection work have also been carried out.

The Zhoushan Health Commission said it has not found any local contacts and will continue to carry out prevention work in accordance with laws and regulations.

The mutant COVID-19 strain that is wrecking havoc in India has recently been detected in some Chinese cities, raising public concerns that the variant from India could spread in China. Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, for instance, reported an imported case of COVID-19 on Wednesday, who had previously worked in India.

Chinese CDC epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said on Thursday that the virus has been mutating constantly, and implementing epidemic control measures is key to curbing the spread of virus variants. 

The latest COVID-19 surge in India has sounded a stark warning that epidemic control is a complicated, difficult and long-term task, and China will continue its normalized epidemic control measures to maintain the current good situation, Wu said.