According to initial investigations the disease was caused by a swine disease known as streptococcus suis II, Xinhua news agency said.

Sichuan province had reported 80 cases of the disease as of Monday morning, including 19 fatalities and 13 suspected cases, it said, citing Wu Jianlin of the Sichuan Provincial Disease Control Centre.

Four people had recovered while the others were being treated in hospital, Wu said.

The Sichuan health department also told the China Daily the disease was "probably" caused by streptococcus suis, a bacteria usually spread among pigs.

"I can assure you that the disease is absolutely not SARS, anthrax or bird flu," Zeng Huajin, a senior official at the health department, was quoted as saying.

All the patients had direct contact with sick or dead pigs, Xinhua cited Chen Zhihai, director of the emergency team of clinical experts, as saying.

Symptoms of the disease included high fever, nausea, vomiting and haemorrhaging, reports said.

The patients came from 75 villages in Sichuan, Xinhua said.

Zeng said the disease could not spread among humans, and normally only those with a weak immune system became ill.

The health and agriculture ministries last week sent a special team to Sichuan to assist in the investigation, treatment and control of the outbreak.

Despite its mysterious nature, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said there was no sign of a massive outbreak of the unknown disease and that there did not seem to be any human-to-human transmission.

"We're concerned when there is a large number of people dying of an unknown cause," WHO spokesman Bob Dietz told AFP. "But the upside is that China has identified this fairly quickly and has responded to it fairly well."

In contrast with China's cover-up and slow response to the deadly outbreak of SARS in 2003, Dietz said China has been efficient and transparent this time.

There was no need for the WHO to conduct independent investigations so far, he said.

"We see China is capable of dealing with this .... Frankly, they have done a good job of spotting this."

He added that if streptococcus suis was indeed the cause of the disease, it was not the first time it had happened in rural Sichuan, although it was the first time that such a large of number of cases occurred.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said it was not handling the case because the disease does not involve the death of animals.

In Hong Kong, Health Secretary York Chow said his Chinese counterparts had notified him of a "widespread infection" and that swine streptococcus bacteria, not often transmitted to human beings, was believed to be the cause.

The city's two main supermarkets suspended sales of frozen pork from Sichuan province.

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