The authorities in the southern province of Guangdong have reported one confirmed and two suspected cases of SARS, the first time the virus has emerged in China since the country was declared SARS-free by the WHO in June.

The WHO is still awaiting laboratory results that could confirm the two suspect cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, but the lack of causal links among the patients is confounding the experts.

"There is certainly no smoking gun at the moment with any of the three cases that would enable us to say precisely where they got it," said Dr Robert Breiman, WHO team leader said.

"It's still a little bit of a mystery, a bit of what you might call a jigsaw puzzle and at some point I have a feeling this will all come together and maybe be fairly obvious, but at the moment it's not clear."

A 20-year-old waitress and 35-year-old businessman remain suspected SARS patients in a southern Guangzhou city hospital and are in stable condition, the Chinese Health Ministry said in its daily report Wednesday.

A 32-year-old man identified as China's only confirmed case since last year's deadly epidemic was released from hospital last week.

Two Australian airline stewards were also in a Sydney hospital isolation ward Wednesday with possible SARS after returning from a flight to China, New South Wales state health minister Morris Iemma said.

Chinese health professionals and the WHO agree that this year's cases bear little resemblance to those from last year, when SARS emerged in Guangdong province and went on to kill nearly 800 people worldwide.

The China Youth Daily cited Guangzhou Respiratory Illness Research Institute deputy director Xiao Zhenglun as making clear the current instances were quite different from the cases last year.

"And also quite different from the cases that appeared in Taiwan and Singapore this year," Xiao said, referring to the only other SARS cases reported since the WHO declared the initial global outbreak over last July.

The global health body said the intensity of the disease has diminished, while the transmission rate is so far nominal when compared to the explosion of cases beginning in November 2002 in Guangdong.

"The severity of the sickness has been much less than last year," said Roy Wadia, a spokesman for the WHO in Guangzhou.

Seeking the origin of the pneumonia-like disease, WHO experts returned to the Xinyuan animal market Wednesday, one of the city's largest suppliers of wildlife such as the civet cat, long suspected as a possible source of SARS.

The WHO's environmental experts took samples from chicken, duck and peacock coops.

A joint WHO-China Ministry of Health team will also travel to southern Guangxi province in an effort to assess the regions' preparedness to cope with an possible SARS outbreak, the WHO announced Wednesday.

"Because of Guangxis proximity to Guangdong province ... it seems wise for expert teams to offer their experience and support to Guangxis health authorities," the WHO said in a statement, adding, though, that no SARS cases have been detected there so far.

Meanwhile, China's campaign to exterminate civet cats and rats in Guangdong has extended to raccoon dogs and badgers.

Province-wide, 558 raccoon dogs and 10 badgers have been killed, and the same fate has befallen 3,945 civet casts, the Guangzhou Daily said. Most of them were drowned in disinfectant and then incinerated.

The WHO reiterated concerns that any such cull could be dangerous.

"If the animal does harbour the virus, then its even more of a concern," said Wadia.

Amid complaints by animal dealers and restaurant owners that Guangdong authorities have been too quick to take action, propaganda pamphlets linking the virus found in the civet to that in SARS could be found around the city's markets and restaurants.

The city government has banned the breeding, sale, distribution and consumption of civet cat, raccoon dog and badger -- all of which are popular delicacies in Guangdong.

TERRA.WIRE