China's Health Ministry this morning confirmed a television producer (32) in the southern city of Guangzhou has SARS in what is the country's first case in months.
The news comes as China said it planed to cull thousands of civet cats and try to wipe out rats and cockroaches as fears of new cases of the flu-like disease spread to Hong Kong and the Philippines.
Guangdong plans to kill about 10,000 civets and to close wild-animal markets to eliminate a possible source of the disease, state media said.
"We will start a patriotic health campaign to kill rats and cockroaches in order to give every place a thorough cleaning for the Lunar New Year," a Guangdong health bureau official said.
SARS originated in Guangdong in November 2002 and went on to kill 800 people around the world, including about 350 in China.
In the Philippines, a woman suspected of contracting SARS while working in Hong Kong had been isolated but health officials said today it was too early to confirm if she had the virus. The woman's husband and her doctor had also been isolated.