China confirms new SARS case

A man taken ill in southern China has the SARS virus, triggering scares that a second outbreak of the illness might be about to hit Asia.

The 32-year-old television producer has severe acute respiratory syndrome, the Chinese Health Ministry said in Beijing.

“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. “This is the first case of SARS since it was effectively controlled last year.”

The confirmation came as authorities ordered the emergency slaughter of 10,000 civet cats in southern China after tests linked the species to the disease, and the Philippines isolated a husband and wife who might be infected.

Hong Kong University researchers said genetic tests on the SARS patient in Guangdong showed the case was similar to a virus found in civets – long-tailed weasel-like mammals eaten as a delicacy in the region.

In the Philippines, officials quarantined a woman in a Manila hospital when she developed a fever after flying from Hong Kong. They also quarantined her husband after he became feverish.

“We are waiting for a test to confirm if she has SARS,” said Dennis Magat, a Health Department official.

Since the SARS crisis of the past year ebbed in July, only researchers exposed to SARS samples in laboratories have caught the disease. The latest cases in southern China and in the Philippines are the first in the community at large and could signal the start of a new SARS season.

Stringent tests on air travellers continued across Asia.

In Malaysia, health officials ruled out SARS in a 31-year-old woman who was in hospital with a fever after visiting Guangzhou.

Within hours of the release of the Hong Kong University test results, Chinese authorities ordered wildlife markets in Guangdong closed and their civet cats slaughtered.

The researchers said the tests suggested the disease might have leaped recently from animals to people – a theory also used to explain the first SARS outbreak that triggered a global health crisis, which killed 349 people on China’s mainland and a total of 774 around the world. More than 8,000 fell ill worldwide.

“We will take resolute measures to close all the wildlife markets in Guangdong and to kill the civet cats,” said Feng Liuxiang, deputy director of the provincial health department. The report said there were believed to be some 10,000 civet cats on sale in Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.