A World Health Organization expert arrived in Beijing on Monday to help China find out whether the first suspected SARS patient in the Chinese mainland in half a year has the killer virus.

Another joint team of WHO and health ministry experts was to head to the southern province of Guangdong to aid testing on the 32-year-old television producer, whose temperature was normal and who appeared to be doing well, Beijing-based WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said.

A Chinese Ministry of Health official said it would take "several days" to arrive at a diagnosis.

None of the 42 people quarantined for having been in contact with the patient has developed a fever or shown other symptoms of the deadly virus, officials said.

"Up till now, we haven't found any new suspected SARS patients, including those who had close contact with the suspected SARS patient," one Guangdong health official said.

If confirmed, the Guangdong case would be the first not linked to laboratory accidents since the WHO declared the outbreak over in July. Two recent cases in Singapore and China's Taiwan were linked to accidents in medical research laboratories.

The Singapore patient has recovered and been discharged and the Taiwan patient is expected to be released soon.

Heat treatment

News of China's suspected SARS case comes just over three weeks before the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday when millions of people in China and across East and Southeast Asia travel to visit relatives.

Singapore has tightened health checks on travelers from southern China. Passengers stepping off planes from Guangzhou have their temperature checked by thermal image scanners before entering the island state airport.

"All arriving passengers are screened for their temperature at the arrival hall, but passengers from Guangzhou have their temperature checked at the aerobridge," said Albert Tjoeng, a spokesman at the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.

Despite a battery of tests, Chinese doctors and laboratory workers have yet to make a final diagnosis on the man, who was first diagnosed with pneumonia in his right lower lung on December 16.

"The tests have been so confusing," said Wadia. "There's been some positives, some negatives and the positives come from a sort of test group that has a high number of false positives.

"That's why it's important that we get the samples tested independently as well, because the more testing that is done by different sources, the less the statistical margin of error."

But it was not yet clear when the WHO specialist would travel to Guangdong, Wadia said. The expert had been invited by the Chinese government to sift through data collected so far on the suspected patient and observe ongoing testing.

The Xinhua News Agency said life in the provincial capital Guangzhou, where the suspected SARS patient had been hospitalized, was normal.

In Beijing, no one was seen wearing protective masks, de rigeur when the SARS spread was at its peak.

Thirty-two health workers who had been in contact with the suspected patient were among those quarantined.

"That they've identified the contacts within a relatively short time is pretty encouraging because it shows that the system that was put into place does seem to be working," said Wadia.

Health experts around the world have on the lookout for a resurgence of SARS since the start of winter in the northern hemisphere.

This time around, Wadia said the WHO was "absolutely satisfied" with the Chinese government's willingness to share information. The WHO was meeting daily with the Ministry of Health and had received updates as the investigation progressed.

(China Daily December 29, 2003)