BEIJING (AP) — Experts from the World Health Organization searched a restaurant in southern China yesterday where a suspected SARS patient worked as a waitress serving dishes prepared from civet cats and other exotic wildlife that may transmit the virus.
Authorities in Guangdong province, where the woman is hospitalized, neared the end of a mass slaughter of the animals that was ordered after genetic tests showed a possible link to an earlier confirmed SARS case. Anyone caught trying to hide civets — a local delicacy — was threatened with fines of up to $12,000.
WHO experts examined the kitchens and dining rooms of the two-story restaurant in the provincial capital of Guangzhou, said Roy Wadia, a spokesman for the team. The restaurant didn’t specialize in wild game, he said, but “served some exotic animal dishes, including civets.”
The five-member WHO team flew to Guangdong on Friday to join Chinese experts in the search for the source of the disease.
Civets — weasel-like mammals related to the mongoose — were cited as a possible source of the earlier outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, though scientists aren’t sure where the virus came from or how its human victims were infected.
The first outbreak, thought to have begun in Guangdong, killed 774 persons worldwide and sickened more than 8,000.
On Monday, Chinese authorities ordered the mass slaughter of civets despite protests by animal activists and a lack of confirmation that they were the source of the disease.
The order came after researchers found a genetic similarity between a virus found in civets and China’s first SARS case of the season — a 32-year-old television producer in Guangzhou. He was hospitalized Dec. 20 and released last week after fully recovering from the disease.
The government set a deadline of yesterday — a target that a local official said authorities expected to meet.
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