China confines new Sars suspect

111UID: 152816

China confines new Sars suspect
BBC

Animals are being slaughtered in Guangdong
A second suspected case of Sars has been identified in the Chinese province of Guangdong.
A 20-year-old waitress has been admitted to hospital and isolated, the state news agency Xinhua reports.

The news came as the country's first Sars patient in six months left hospital after making a full recovery from the potentially fatal virus.

In Hong Kong, three TV journalists who recently visited southern China are being tested for Sars.

They had visited a wild animal market and the hospital where the first Chinese Sars patient was being treated, while preparing a report on the illness.

But a woman in the Philippines has been cleared of having the virus.

It was feared that she had caught Sars after developing a fever when she returned from working in Hong Kong in December.

Mass slaughter

The Chinese waitress suspected of having the disease reportedly worked in a restaurant serving wild game in the southern city of Guangzhou.

She has been in hospital since 31 December while 48 people close to her have been placed under quarantine.

CIVET CAT

Part of mongoose family, distant relative of feline cat
Weasel-like face, cat-like body
Served in wild game restaurants
Estimated 10,000 in Guangdong markets
May have been the source of the virus which jumped to humans


China follows Mao with mass cull  
Scientists believe the virus that causes Sars may have jumped from animals to humans but it is still unclear which animals might be carrying it and how it might have leapt the species barrier.


It is not yet known how the first Guangdong patient, who has been identified only as "Mr Luo", contracted the virus.

In his first interview since being diagnosed with the disease, the 32-year-old man said he had never eaten civet cat which has been linked to Sars.

A mass slaughter of the animals is being carried out in Guangdong.

In an interview with the state-run Xinhua news agency the man said he had never even seen a civet, let alone eaten one.

Tests had shown his virus was similar to one found in civets, prompting the government's decision to slaughter about 10,000 of the animals.

Mouse contact

The disease has also been linked to rats and the authorities in Guangdong now say that they will launch a rat extermination campaign after they have finished killing the civets.

In the interview with Xinhua, Mr Luo said he caught a baby mouse in the bath tub using a pair of chopsticks.

He described himself as an environmentalist opposed to the slaughter of living creatures, so he said he threw the animal out of a window.

The new cases mark a return of the Sars virus which broke out in China and caused a global health crisis last year.

It killed around 800 people and infected about 8,000.

It had been hoped that Mr Luo's case might be an isolated one but the chances of that are now diminishing, says BBC correspondent in Beijing Louisa Lim.

妖妖UID: 149770

1. maybe GuanDong residents should change their diet structions. I also remembered that they were holding a public meeting to decide weather to stop eating wild animals when sars was wildly spread .At last the local president presentation  won, they went on enjoying the foods they liked

2.It is good that government realized the importance of such disease. They were becoming very serious in dealing with the public precation. i went to hospital to check my teeth morning, i was stopped by a nurse who weared respirator, i was ordered to check my teperature.

3.  Breaking out plague is miserable in human hisrory. i just read a book about all famous plagues last week at the biggest book store in my city. i was shocked by the data and the imagines collected in it though i knew some of them before. But when you face them, you will find it is hard to accept it. i almost cannot sleep and eat something after reading it. Bubonic plague was also the one spread by rats, it almost killed the culture of Europe. Smallpox was disapeared now , but many data show that the virus had evolved to another subspecise which will endange us sooner or later.

All in all, God bless us.