Chinese government confirms SARS case

Beijing - After two weeks of intricate tests, the Chinese Health Ministry announced Monday that a sick man in southern China does indeed have the SARS virus, triggering scares that a second season of the illness might be at hand.

The government's Xinhua News Agency said in a brief urgent dispatch that the illness contracted by a 32-year-old television producer "has been confirmed as a diagnosed case." It quoted the Ministry of Health. The World Health Organization in Beijing also said an announcement was forthcoming.

"Based on the combined tests of the Ministry of Health and Guangdong provincial health experts, the suspected SARS case has been confirmed," the ministry said on its Web site. "This is the first case of SARS since it was effectively controlled last year.

The confirmation represents the first known case of SARS contracted in China since July — and the first this season to come from the general population. Two other cases — in Singapore and Taiwan — were linked to researchers who apparently had been exposed in laboratories.

The diagnosis came hours after China ordered 10,000 civet cats in wildlife markets — and several related species — killed in its southern province of Guangdong after genetic tests suggested a link to a suspected SARS case. The civet has long been suspected as a vector for the disease's suspected jump from animals to humans.

The patient is reported in stable condition and recovering. --Associated Press

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