New suspected SARS case emerges in China

Beijing - Another suspected case of SARS emerged in southern China on Sunday as international medical investigators scoured an apartment block to determine if it played any role in the infection of a man who lived there — the season's only confirmed case of the virus so far.

Dr. Thomas Tsang, a spokesman for the Hong Kong Department of Health, told reporters that his agency received word of the latest suspected case from officials in Guangdong province, which abuts Hong Kong. Tsang said the 35-year-old patient has been isolated and hospitalized.

The source of the man's possible infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome is being investigated, Tsang said.

No further information was available, and a woman who answered the phone at the Guangdong SARS Prevention Office said she had no new reports of suspected cases. She gave only her surname, Zhou.

World Health Organization officials in Beijing, the Chinese capital, and accompanying an investigative team in Guangdong said they knew of the reports but had no immediate information on a new suspected case.

"Press reports keep bubbling up," WHO spokesman Bob Dietz said in Beijing. "There's always been a problem with case definition with SARS — actually identifying a case. So we want to understand clearly the basics that Guangdong is using."

He added: "It's not clear to us how they're arriving at a decision to identify a suspected case."

The other suspected case a 20-year-old waitress, was announced last week. She has been isolated for treatment.

The only confirmed case, a 32-year-old television producer named Luo, left the hospital last week and was pronounced recovered. He told authorities he came into contact with no wild animals, and the source of his SARS remains a mystery.

On Sunday, his apartment block in the provincial capital of Guangzhou was the site of a flurry of WHO activity as investigators swept through, interviewing managers and looking for possible modes of infection in water systems, garbage facilities and living quarters. They took swab samples from stairwells and terraces, among other sites.

"Our environmental experts scoured the building," WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said in a telephone interview from Guangzhou. "Based on the observations they made, the complex seemed to be managed pretty well. The upkeep was good. The management was extremely cooperative."

He said the WHO also was working with the Guangdong Center for Disease Control to examine all data collected so far.

At the same time, experts worked Sunday to process laboratory samples taken from a restaurant that employed the waitress. WHO called Friday for more information on the woman, saying it could help determine how she was pronounced a suspected case.

Investigators said it was not yet clear whether her job was linked to her illness.

Samples were taken Saturday from the establishment, which didn't specialize in wild game but served some wildlife, including civet cats.

Thousands of civets were slaughtered in Guangdong during the past week on suspicions they could have transmitted SARS to human beings. Although the virus has been found in the weasel-like mammals, there has been no definitive proof of their status as a human vector.

"Basically, most of the civet cats in Guangdong have been slaughtered," said an official at the Guangzhou Anti-SARS Office who gave only his surname, Liu.

Guangdong — where SARS is believed to have first appeared — is in the midst of a massive cleanup effort. Authorities are now turning their attention to pests like roaches and rats.

The Guangzhou-based newspaper Yangcheng Evening News said Sunday on its Web site that a three-day campaign to eliminate rats was drawing more than 10,000 people. It said more than 10 tons of grain had been laced with poison and deployed in "millions of places" to kill rats.

"Exercise caution in dealing with rat carcasses," it said, quoting authorities.

SARS, a form of atypical pneumonia, first broke out in Guangdong in November 2002. It infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 worldwide — mostly in Asia — before it was brought under control in June.

Separately, the South Korean Environmental Ministry said Sunday that it has banned the import of civet cats, Chinese ferret badgers and raccoon dogs because of their possible link to SARS.

People who are caught violating the ban can receive jail terms of up to two years or a $4,200 fine, ministry officials said. No cases of SARS have been found in South Korea. -- Reuters

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