China Announces New Confirmed SARS Case

China’s Health Ministry on Saturday announced a new confirmed case of SARS, but said the patient has already been discharged from a hospital.

The man is the fourth confirmed SARS case announced in China this season.

The man, identified as a 40-year-old doctor from Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province, had been released “recently,” the official Xinhua News Agency said, without specifying when.

He became ill on Jan. 7, suffering from a high fever and a sore throat, Xinhua said. He checked himself into a hospital in Guangzhou on Jan. 13, it said.

On Jan. 18, his temperature returned to normal and his condition stabilized, Xinhua said.

The first known case of severe acute respiratory syndrome emerged in Guandgong in November 2002. A subsequent worldwide outbreak killed 774 people last year, including 349 in mainland China, and sickened more than 8,000 before subsiding last July.

This season’s three other patients in China – a businessman, a waitress and a television producer – have been released from the hospital in recent weeks. All were from Guangzhou.