4TH LD: China, WHO confirm SARS case in Guangdong Prov

Asian Economic News, Jan 12, 2004

BEIJING, Jan. 5 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH WHO NEWS CONFERENCE)

Chinese health officials and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday confirmed a 32-year-old man who got sick in the southern province of Guangdong late last month as China's first SARS case since late June.

After more than a week of tests, the Chinese Health Ministry said via the official Xinhua News Agency that the freelance television producer listed since Dec. 27 as a ''suspected case'' in a Guangzhou hospital was now a ''diagnosed case.''

The ministry reportedly said testing by laboratories under the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guangdong Center for Disease Control and Prevention clearly showed the patient was infected with the SARS coronavirus.

It said the results of the tests had been reviewed and confirmed by two World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratories.

The WHO separately said that the lone case is not an immediate public-health threat and would not be grounds for a travel warning for China.

''We do believe that the system in Guangdong was working,'' Reuters news service quoted WHO representative in China Henk Bekedam as telling a news conference. ''We have, really, thumbs up for what's happened so far.''

Xinhua quoted a WHO press release as saying, ''It is perfectly safe for members of the public to travel to Guangdong Province.''

According to the WHO, virus neutralization tests in laboratories in Beijing and in Hong Kong -- at the Hong Kong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong -- confirmed the diagnosis over the weekend after tests in southern China left the result unclear.

While it remains unknown how the man contracted SARS, the China Daily said Monday he had set out traps for rats that tested positive for SARS.

His coronavirus also shows a structure similar to that of SARS in palm civets, which are a leading suspect in spreading SARS in Guangdong.

Xinhua reported that that the province will close down all wild-animal markets, which are popular in the south, and kill an estimated 10,000 civets as well as bar the animals from entering from other provinces. It has also announced a ban on the breeding and sale of civet cats to prevent any possible spread of SARS.

The Guangdong Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that experts from the University of Hong Kong had found large quantities of the SARS-like coronavirus in civet cats and other wildlife collected from the markets in Guangzhou and Shenzhen cities.

Further research found that the S-gene sequence of the coronavirus from civet cats and that of the SARS patient in Guangdong were ''highly homological'' and were from ''the same phylogenetic tree,'' Xu Ruiheng, deputy director of the center, was quoted as saying.

As Chinese people feared a resurgence of the springtime outbreak that sickened 5,327 and killed 349, provincial authorities contacted 81 of the man's recent contacts for quarantine and observation. No one else has gotten sick.

WHO spokesman Roy Wadia called the case an ''unusually complicated case in the annals of SARS,'' and said China's investigation of the cause should intensify over the coming weeks.

The man, surnamed Luo, is in stable condition at the Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital, where his fever dropped a day after the suspected case was made public.

Beijing's international airport and the Hong Kong-mainland border crossing are taking the body temperatures of travelers, especially people from Guangdong.

China Central TV's evening news encouraged people to use disinfectants and report suspicious symptoms.

Earlier Monday, a health official in Guangdong called ''baseless'' rumors there has been another suspected SARS case in the province.

Wang Ming, deputy director of the Guangzhou's diseases prevention and control center, told a press conference Monday morning regarding reports of a second case, ''We do have a fever patient due to pneumonia, but this has no direct connection with any suspected SARS case.''

''We have taken necessary medical measures toward the patient with a fever,'' he said, ''Our diseases prevention and control centers are examining and closely monitoring the situation.''