BEIJING (Reuters) - A suspected SARS (news - web sites) patient in
southern China may have caught a new, mutated strain of the deadly
virus, a genetics expert researching the case said on Sunday.

Chinese media also speculated the patient, a 32-year-old television
producer, might have caught the virus from rats but this has not been
confirmed.

"It's definitely a coronavirus, but it's a different strain from the
virus last year," Chen Qiuxia of the Guangdong Center for Disease
Prevention and Control told Reuters. "Our gene testing showed the
difference."

Chen, ruling out the possibility of contamination in the laboratory
skewing the results, said the virus may be a mutation of the
coronavirus blamed for the SARS outbreak last year that infected about
8,000 people worldwide and killed almost 800.

The SARS virus belongs to the coronavirus family which also causes the
common cold in humans.

Most scientists say flu-like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which
first surfaced in southern China in November 2002, is likely to have
spread from farms in the region, possibly jumping to humans from
animals such as civet cats, ducks, pigs and rats.

A battery of lab tests on the television producer, China's first
suspected SARS case since the World Health Organization (news - web
sites) (WHO) declared the world SARS free in July, have been
inconclusive.

Roy Wadia, WHO spokesman in Beijing, declined to comment on the
possibility the man might have a new strain of SARS, saying the
organization had not yet examined Chen's study.

The Beijing Youth Daily, however, quoted an expert from a military
medical research institute cautioning that it was too early to say if
the man was infected with a mutated version of SARS, and further, more
comprehensive gene tests were necessary.

Last week, China reported that a viral gene sequencing test showed a
high correlation with the gene sequence of the coronavirus that causes
SARS.

The WHO has noted that tiny fragments of a virus gene similar to the
SARS pathogen have appeared in a small number of samples.

It says laboratories in Hong Kong running further tests might be able
to offer a definitive diagnosis this week.

Chinese media have reported that the patient had contact with rats
before he got sick and speculated there may be a link, but Chen said:
"So far we still cannot prove that it's related to rats."

The WHO's Wadia said the possible rat connection was something its
experts had noted, but it was too early to comment.

BEIJING (AFP) - The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS (news -
web sites)) virus returned to haunt China for the first time in six
months as a suspected case in southern Guangdong province was upgraded
to a confirmed case by senior health officials.

"The case has been confirmed," Feng Shaoming, spokesman for the
Guangdong Center for Disease Control, told AFP. "Our experts at the
Center for Disease Control have made many tests and they are all
positive."

SARS triggered a worldwide health crisis after emerging in Guangdong
in November last year, causing 774 deaths and more than 8,000
infections, the vast majority in Asia.

Feng said three experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) were
in Guangdong's provincial capital of Guangzhou Tuesday and were going
over the test results.

He acknowledged that the case could not be officially upgraded to a
confirmed case until the Ministry of Health made a formal
announcement.

"So far the Ministry of Health has not announced it, nor has the World
Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO). I don't know when they
will, it is up to them, but our experts here have confirmed it."

In its daily SARS report Tuesday, the ministry said no new suspected,
clinically confirmed or confirmed cases of SARS had been reported
nationwide from 10 am Monday to 10 am Tuesday.

"According to reports from across the country at present there is only
one suspected case of SARS and no clinically confirmed or confirmed
cases," the ministry said.

Wang Maowu, director of disease control at the national-level Chinese
Centre for Disease Control, told AFP an official statement was likely
to be issued Wednesday.

Roy Wadia, WHO's Beijing-based spokesman said that the WHO was trying
to contact their ministry counterparts and reiterated that the WHO
would be prudent in verifying the test results.

"We are trying to get confirmation with the Ministry of Health," Wadia
said.

"So far we have no official word ourselves."

China's health ministry announced Saturday the discovery of a
suspected SARS case in a 32-year-old man in Guangzhou, near where the
virus was first detected in Foshan city on November 16 last year.

Panyu city, where the freelance journalist, identified only as Luo,
comes from is barely 40 kilometres (24.8 miles) from Foshan.

None of the 42 people that came in close contact with Luo nor the 39
who had normal contact have developed fever or other abnormal
reactions, the ministry said, adding that nine people have been
removed from medical observation.

It said Luo was in a stable condition and had had a normal temperature
for seven consuective days.

Luo developed a fever on December 16 and was hospitalized with
pneumonia in the right lung on December 20.

Scientists suspect the SARS epidemic may have originated from wild
animals sold for food in Guangdong's markets.

While both Singapore and Taiwan have reported SARS cases since the
epidemic petered out in July, they were traced to laboratories where
research had been conducted on the virus and not to the general
population.

On Tuesday, the WHO team in Guangzhou met with the patient, Hong Kong
radio reported.

After the meeting, WHO expert Augusto Pinto told reporters they would
be carrying out detailed investigations on test results and estimated
that it would take several days to review the data.

SARS symptoms are similar to other respiratory diseases with the onset
of the disease only fully confirmed after a battery of tests are
taken, including tests for SARS antibodies in the patient.

No vaccine is yet available.

China has issued health notices that include five-levels of SARS
diagnoses among which are suspected cases, clinically confirmed cases
and confirmed cases.

In the initial outbreak in late 2002 and early this year suspected
SARS cases were routinely hospitalized and treated as full blown cases
due to the absence of a timely test for the disease, medical officials
told AFP.

In retrospect, an untold number of people contracted SARS after being
hospitalized with other SARS patients, while in Taiwan nearly 100
fatalities first attributed to SARS were later rediagnosed as non-SARS
related.

China was the country worst affected by the SARS epidemic, infecting
5,327 people nationwide and killing 349.

The disease spilled into neighboring Hong Kong where 299 died as it
spread globally, devastating economies across Asia with travel and
tourism sectors losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sun Dec 21, 6:05 PM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - A restaurant in southern China's Guangdong province is
doing a brisk business in rat dishes, ignoring all warnings to stop
serving wildlife to prevent the spread of SARS (news - web sites),
state media said.

The eatery, in the city of Zhuhai, sells more than 100 rats a day, the
Xinxishibao or Information Times reported.

Some of the rats are caught in farm fields, while others are from the
mountains.

Southern Chinese believe rodents are safe to eat or turn into wine if
they are caught in countryside. However, regardless of whether they
are from rural or urban areas, they can transmit diseases, the report
quoted experts saying.

The outbreak of SARS in Guangdong last November did not discourage
local residents -- known for their taste for exotic dishes -- from
their eating habits.

Scientists from China and elsewhere found the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) virus in several types of wildlife, including rats,
and the government forbade vendors from selling wild animals,
especially endangered animals.

Officials also tried to discourage people from eating such creatures,
but the practice, part of Guangdong culture, continues.

Rats served by the restaurant can be as big as over 20 centimeters
(eight inches) long, the report said.

The restaurant skins the rodents by putting them in a pot of melted
asphalt, it said. Their skin comes off when the cooled asphalt is
peeled off them.

SARS infected almost 8,500 people and killed nearly 800 worldwide
before it was brought under control mid-year.

China was the epidemic's country of origin and also its main victim,
accounting for 349 fatalities and 5,327 infections, of which 193
deaths were in Beijing.

TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's parliament has banned the selling of dog meat
in an effort to deter the slaughtering of strays, a lawmaker's aide
said.

The original law barred the killing of pets, including dogs and cats,
for their meat, skin (news - web sites) or other parts for financial
benefit.

But it failed to stop vendors from selling slaughtered dogs or to stop
restaurants from offering dog meat as a delicacy.

They were able to evade punishment by claiming that they did not kill
the animals themselves, said the aide to Wang Sing-nan, who proposed
the amendment.

"We hope by stopping the sale of dog meat, the killing will stop too,"
the aide said.

The amendment, passed Tuesday, also increased penalties for violators,
with the fine raised to a maximum of 250,000 Taiwan dollars (7,355 US
dollars), from 10,000 dollars.

Help-Save-A-Pet Fund in Taiwan, a non-profit organization advocating
animal rights, welcomed the bill and planned to offer small rewards to
those providing tips on dog meat sellers.

Secretary-general Liu Yu-tung said she hoped for a further law change
to ban the eating of dog meat altogether.