China has confirmed a possible third SARS case, and the World Health Organization (WTO) is seeking clarification on rumours of a fourth.
The official China Daily newspaper said today the third patient, a 35-year-old man, was under observation in the southern city of Guangzhou, where two other SARS cases, one of them confirmed, have been treated.
"The Ministry of Health received the report from Guangdong health authorities on Saturday that a man with some SARS symptoms has been isolated in hospital for medical observation," the newspaper quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.
The man, who has not been formally declared a suspected case, had apparently had no contact with SARS patients or with wild animals that might be carrying the potentially lethal virus.
But doctors in Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong, said chances were high that he would be formally designated a suspected SARS case, the Xinhua news agency said.
The WHO also said it was asking the Health Ministry and local authorities about rumours of a possible fourth SARS case under observation in the boomtown of Shenzhen, directly across the border from Hong Kong.
Last Monday, China confirmed its first case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a 32-year-old television producer, since a world outbreak was declared over in July.
That man has since recovered and left hospital last week, but health officials said a gene sample from him matched that of a coronavirus found in civet cats, a weasel-like animal eaten as a delicacy in southern China and sold in crowded markets.
Luo insisted that he had had no contact with civets but authorities ordered a cull of the animals in hope of averting an outbreak.
A waitress from a restaurant that served civets is in hospital suspected of having the flu-like disease.