17.—(1) A ship to which the appropriate prescribed measures have been applied to the satisfaction of a Port Health Officer shall be granted pratique notwithstanding the presence on board of transit passengers whose quarantine period in respect of a dangerous infectious disease is not completed.
(2) Any transit passenger may be allowed by a Port Health Officer to leave the ship subject to such conditions as he may impose.
(3) A transit passenger may be detained in a quarantine station for observation until either the appropriate incubation period of the disease in respect of which he is detained is completed or until the ship is ready to sail whichever is the sooner. Such transit passenger may be allowed to remain on board the ship if the master undertakes in writing to accept liability in case the transit passenger leaves the ship without the written permission of a Port Health Officer.
(4) If any such passenger on whose behalf the master has accepted liability leaves the ship, the master shall be guilty of an offence and the passenger shall be arrested without warrant and detained at a quarantine station until the incubation period of the disease in respect of which the ship is in quarantine is completed.