Officials in the southern province of Guangdong said a 20-year-old waitress was under quarantine at a hospital in the capital Guangzhou with SARS-like symptoms. She reportedly worked at a wildlife restaurant.

She has been hospitalized since December 31 and her condition was stable, a provincial government statement said.

The announcement coincided with the discharge from hospital of a 32-year-old-television journalist, China's first SARS case in six months.

The cases mark a resurfacing of the pneumonia-like disease which killed hundreds and spread panic in China and elsewhere last year.

Medical teams have disinfected the area where the waitress lived and quarantined 48 people who had close contact with her, while monitoring another 52 people who had some contact with her.

None have shown SARS symptoms so far.

Across the border in Hong Kong, three television reporters from local broadcaster TVB were in Queen Mary Hospital after showing SARS-like symptoms following a visit to Guangdong last week to cover the new outbreak.

"The reporters went to some high risk areas in Guangzhou including hospitals and wild game markets as part of their work ... one individual was also believed to have consumed wild game," Hong Kong's acting deputy director of health Regina Ching said.

Wildlife, particularly civet cats, are suspected transmitters of the disease and a massive cull of the weasel-like animals is underway, while a rat extermination campaign will begin this weekend in Guangzhou.

The three journalists are in stable condition in isolation wards.

The latest suspected case in mainland China, the waitress, developed a fever by December 26, the statement said.

WHO officials said Thursday they had no further information on her, but that samples from the woman were in Beijing for testing.

"We'd like more information on it," said Roy Wadia, a Beijing WHO spokesman.

Tang Xiaoping, director of the No. 8 People's Hospital where the woman will be transferred to, said the restaurant where the migrant worker from central Henan province worked was not specifically a wildlife restaurant.

But he added: "We don't know if it had wildlife. Many restaurants do."

The emergence of the latest suspected case should not be cause for alarm, given the heightened state of alert in China's surveillance system, said Bob Dietz, another WHO spokesman.

"What's reassuring to us at this point is we seem to be catching cases ... So it seems the surveillance system is working. People know what to do when cases show up," Dietz said.

A WHO team of experts Thursday headed to Guangzhou to deepen the probe into how the confirmed patient contracted SARS, which Wadia said was "of paramount importance."

Experts will likely revisit the man's apartment compound, reinterview him and possibly look at the area's rat population and even study rat faeces, Wadia said.

"There are all these theories, such as that rat faeces scattered by the wind might be a source of infection. All these things need to be studied more," he said.

Transportation departments meanwhile are taking measures to prevent the spread of SARS during a peak annual Lunar New Year travel period beginning Wednesday. Hundreds of millions of people will travel during the 40-day period. SARS first broke out in China and caused a global crisis last year, killing about 800 people and infecting around 8,000. Mainland China was worst affected, followed by Hong Kong.

TERRA.WIRE