KIEV, September 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s Health Ministry does not exclude that the crew of the MV Western Copenhagen cargo vessel, which arrived from Guinea on Tuesday and is moored ten miles from the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, may have the Ebola virus.

“These are still suspicions as it could be malaria as well,” ministry’s spokesperson told ITAR-TASS. “We have no verifications which we will get only after tests are carried out by the sanitary and epidemiological inspection on water transport.”

Earlier, the chief sanitary inspector of the Ukrainian sanitary and epidemiological inspection of the Black Sea basin, Nikolay Golubyatnikov, told the Ukrainian Vesti portal that on September 18 a crewman of the Western Copenhagen who was showing symptoms of Ebola was taken by boat to hospital in Italy’s Sicily.

“We are expecting his medical tests by Saturday,” Golubyatnikov said adding that after the results became known, Ukrainian medics would be delivered onboard and would take all necessary measures.

The cargo ship that had left Guinea was carrying 20 tons of bauxite to a Ukrainian plant located in the Black Sea port of Nikolayev.

After the crewman was hospitalized in Sicily, the vessel passed through the Bosporus Strait and moored near Odessa on September 23.

The deadly Ebola virus is raging in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with several cases registered in Senegal and Nigeria. Since February, over 5,800 people have contracted the disease and the death toll topped 3,000.