SARS Confirmed In China

China has confirmed that a man feared to have SARS does in fact have the respiratory disease. China, accused in 2002 of moving too slowly against SARS, is this time ordering the killing of 10,000 animals that might be linked to the outbreak.

SARS fears have also popped up in the Philippines, where a domestic worker from Hong Kong and her husband are in a Manila hospital, awaiting test results on whether they have SARS.

Last year, the Philippines reported 12 SARS cases, including two deaths. All but four were traced back to a Filipina nurse who contracted the virus in Toronto and infected her father after returning home. Both have died.

In Beijing, the order to have some 10,000 civet cats killed as a precaution against SARS came Monday - a few hours before Chinese health officials announced that a man in Guangdong province does have SARS.

"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 on its Web site. "This is the first case of SARS since it was effectively controlled last year."

The government has said that the patient, a 32-year-old TV producer, is in stable condition and is recovering.

The confirmation represents the first known case of SARS contracted in China since July - and the first this season to come from the general population. Two other cases - in Singapore and Taiwan - were linked to researchers who apparently had been exposed in laboratories.

Earlier in the day, Chinese authorities denied reports of another suspected SARS case.

"We do have a fever patient due to pneumonia, but this has no direct connection with any suspected SARS case," said Wang Ming, deputy director of Guangzhou City diseases prevention and control center, according to Xinhua, the government news agency.

Hong Kong news reports had said a waitress in a wild game restaurant was suspected of having severe acute respiratory syndrome, which is believed to have originated in Guangdong.

"We have taken necessary medical measures towards the patient with a fever," Wang was quoted as saying. "Our diseases prevention and control centers are examining and closely monitoring the situation."

China Monday ordered some 10,000 civet cats in wildlife markets killed in its southern province of Guangdong after genetic tests suggested a link to a suspected SARS case.

All wildlife markets in Guangdong province have been ordered to close. Civets are served in wild game restaurants in Guangdong.

The announcement came after researchers at Hong Kong University said they found similarities between a virus found in the cats and in a suspected SARS patient in Guangdong, suggesting the disease might have jumped from animals.

"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 Guangdong Health Department, in an interview on China Central Television.

The world's first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome was recorded in China's Guangdong province in November 2002. The flu-like illness killed 349 people on China's mainland and 774 worldwide. More than 8,000 were sickened around the world.