MSNBC By boiling and drowning, electrocution and incineration, civet cats were put to death Tuesday in southern China in a mass eradication designed to stem a suspected - but unproven - link to SARS.

[Guest guest]

>Wed, 7 Jan 2004 06:30:02 -0800

>

A worker in Guangzhou on Monday drops a dead civet cat into a metal

container for incineration after drowning it in chemical disinfectant.

>

>China begins slaughter of civet cats

>By boiling and drowning, electrocution and incineration, civet cats

>were put to death Tuesday in southern China in a mass eradication

>designed to stem a suspected - but unproven - link to SARS. Said one

>newspaper: " Watch the civets turn to vapor. "

>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3841204/

>

SARS patient: never ate civet

Thousands of animals killed on virus fears

 

MSNBC staff and news service reports

Updated: 11:22 a.m. ET Jan. 07, 2004

 

GUANGZHOU, China - The Chinese TV producer who contracted SARS had

never eaten or remembered touching a civet cat, state media reported

on Wednesday, as thousands of the animals were slaughtered because

of fears they may carry a form of the virus that can jump to humans.

 

advertisementIn the Philippines, authorities said a woman suspected

of contracting SARS while working as a maid in Hong Kong had

pneumonia and not the deadly flu-like virus, easing fears of regional

contagion.

 

" This is not a case of SARS, " Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit told a

news conference after the government received the results of tests on

the unidentified 42-year-old woman.

 

China's official Xinhua news agency said the only contact with

wildlife the SARS patient could recall was with a mouse he threw out

of a window.

 

The victim, surnamed Luo, was confirmed as having SARS this week and

is due to be released on Thursday from hospital in the southern

province of Guangdong, where the disease emerged in November 2002 and

went on to kill 800 people around the world.

 

Only one of the 81 people who had contact with Luo remained in

quarantine, the Health Ministry said. State television said that

person would be released on Thursday as well.

 

Chinese health authorities said a gene sample from the 32-year-old

man resembled that of a coronavirus found in civets, a local delicacy.

 

China has given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter of about 10,000

civets, a course of action that has worried the World Health

Organization which fears the cull could help spread the disease.

 

" Still unaware of the cause of his catching SARS, environmentalist

Luo said he had never touched or eaten civet cats in his life and

recalled only having thrown a baby mouse out of the window by hand, "

Xinhua said.

 

Animals 'turned to vapor'

The China Daily said the civet extermination was being carried out by

" braising and steaming " the animals and quoted experts as saying

releasing them into the wild was not an option.

 

" During the whole process, there is no direct contact between the

employees and the animals, " it said.

 

Guangdong authorities have said the civets are being drowned in

chemical disinfectant and then incinerated.

 

Provincial authorities set a deadline of Saturday to finish the

slaughter in Guangdong, where medical investigators believe crucial

clues to the origins of severe acute respiratory syndrome may lie.

 

Newspaper photos showed health workers in white protective suits,

goggles, surgical masks and elbow-length rubber gloves drowning

animals. On local TV, crews in jumpsuits hosed down empty cages at

Guangzhou's wild animal market.

 

The Yangcheng Evening News gave readers a step-by-step illustrated

account of how the civets, once killed, would be boiled for six hours

until they " turn to vapor. "

 

In other areas, authorities were drowning civets and other animals by

lowering them in cages into vats of water, the Guangzhou Daily said.

 

" Guangdong is entering an extraordinary period, and extraordinary

measures are called for, " said Feng Liuxiang, deputy director of

Guangdong's provincial Health Bureau, quoted on the Web site of the

Guangzhou Daily newspaper.

 

No definitive link to SARS

But WHO investigators say no definitive connection has been

established and expressed concern that a mass slaughter might spread

the germ or eradicate crucial evidence of SARS' origins.

 

As Asia girded for a possible second season of SARS and its airports

tightened scrutiny on travelers from Guangdong, mounting evidence

suggested a Filipino couple suspected of having the virus were clear

of it.

 

And China emphasized that it was still safe. " " We need to be

vigilant, but we don't want to panic, " Foreign Ministry spokesman

Kong Quan said.

 

INTERACTIVE* New diseases

Where do they come from?SARS infected about 8,000 people around the

world last year, about two-thirds of them in China, and savaged

airline and tourism industries around Asia.

 

" Everything remains as normal, " an official of the Guangdong foreign

economic and trade administration told Reuters. " There is no plan to

cancel any international conferences or exhibitions for the time

being. "

 

The Guangdong branch of state travel chain CITS signed " anti-SARS "

guarantees with hotels, restaurants and tour operators to assure

customers their destinations were SARS free.

 

" None of our customers have cancelled their trips abroad, nor have

foreign tourists cancelled their trips to Guangdong, " a branch

official said.

 

Air France on Tuesday inaugurated a new Paris-Guangzhou service which

will run five times a week from June.

 

Luo, 32, complained of a headache and fever on December 16 and was

admitted to an isolation ward at the No. 1 Hospital of Zhongshan

University on December 20.

 

Initially diagnosed as having pneumonia, he was transferred to the

No. 8 People's Hospital on December 24.

 

" The disease is not that fearful, " Luo said in a telephone interview

with the news agency from the Guangdong capital, Guangzhou, on

Tuesday.

 

" It was quite a shock to realise that I might have contracted SARS,

when I was sent to the isolation ward, " said Luo.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

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