China Has 3rd Suspected SARS Case

Chinese provincial and national health authorities said Monday a 35-year-old man hospitalized with SARS symptoms is officially a "suspected case" - the nation's third patient linked to the disease this season.

Wang Zhiqiong, deputy chief of the health bureau in Guangdong province, said the patient had been listed as a suspected case. She said he is a resident of the provincial capital, Guangzhou, where the other two cases also emerged in recent weeks.

The Chinese Ministry of Health also confirmed the newly classified suspected case, saying the man began running a fever on Dec. 31. The government says 14 who came into close contact with him and 14 others who came into casual contact have been isolated and are showing no symptoms.

The government says the man is in stable condition. Further tests will be conducted to determine definitively if he has severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The patient was transferred Friday to Guangzhou's No. 8 People's Hospital, where suspected SARS cases are treated. His fever has subsided and X-rays on his lungs appeared normal Monday, Wang said.

She said the man had touched no wildlife before he became sick. Chinese authorities suspect certain wild animals of spreading SARS to people.

Last week, another suspected case was announced: a 20-year-old waitress who worked in a restaurant that serves civet cats and other wild animals in Guangdong's capital, Guangzhou.

The only confirmed SARS 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 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 over 10,000 people are involved in the government's three-day campaign to eliminate rats. More than 10 tons of grain has 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.