Suspected SARS Case Is Reported in China

HONG KONG —  Chinese officials say a suspected SARS case has been found in the southern province of Guangdong, the World Health Organization and Hong Kong’s health director said today.

If confirmed, it would be China’s first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome since July.

The Health Ministry in Beijing notified the WHO on Friday that a journalist in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, might have contracted SARS, WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said by phone from Manila.

Cordingley said the man, who had a high fever and a headache, was admitted Dec. 20 to a Guangzhou hospital specializing in SARS treatment.

The 32-year-old from Panyu district in Guangzhou has not traveled abroad or to Hong Kong, said Dr. Lam Ping-yan, Hong Kong’s director of health.

Guangzhou officials said that some initial tests showed the man has SARS, but that more tests would be conducted over the weekend, Lam said.

SARS, which is believed to have originated in Guangdong, killed 349 people on China’s mainland and sickened more than 5,000. The government said in July that the mainland’s last 12 patients had been declared free of the disease.

The new case would be the first in the world not linked to laboratory accidents since the World Health Organization declared the SARS outbreak over in July.

Two recent cases in Singapore and Taiwan were linked to accidents in research laboratories.