Tests run in Guangdong province have shown that a 32-year-old television journalist has come down with the virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Feng Shaoming, spokesman for the Guangdong health bureau said on Tuesday.

But the Ministry of Health wants to undergo further tests and has agreed to hand over samples from the patient to the World Health Organization for analysis in its international laboratories, the WHO said.

Under regulations issued earlier this year, China's ministry of health is the only official organ with the authority to announce clinically confirmed or confirmed SARS cases.

In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa warned the chances of the suspected case in neighbouring Guangdong being confirmed were "very high".

"Before I left my office, I received a message; although the SARS case in (provincial capital) Guangzhou has not been confirmed, experts say the chance is very high," he told reporters late Tuesday.

Tung stressed both Guangdong and Hong Kong would tighten health checks at border points.

SARS triggered a worldwide health crisis after emerging in Guangdong in November last year, causing 774 deaths and more than 8,000 infections, the vast majority in Asia.

"As this is so far the first case (this winter), I think that the experts in Guangdong province must have a very deep understanding of the case," Deng Xiaohong, spokesman for the Beijing municipal health department told AFP.

"We are waiting for an official announcement. We will believe them when they announce it officially."

A joint Ministry of Health/WHO team were in Guangzhou going over test results and had met with the patient, who is said to be recovering, health ministry officials said.

Despite the lack of official confirmation, medical officials in Guangdong appeared to be viewing the case as being confirmed, but were expressing a belief that the infection and fatality rate of a new SARS outbreak may be much lower than the epidemic earlier this year.

Zhou Junan, head of the Shenzhen Health Department in Guangdong, told Wednesday's Beijing News that the suspect patient had all the classic SARS symptoms but that his capability to infect others was low and the symptoms were milder than what appeared in the earlier outbreaks last winter and spring.

"The two previous generations of the atypical pneumonia virus spread violently, the rate of infection was rather high and it led to the deaths of a lot of people infected," Zhou was quoted as saying.

"What might be happening is that the third generation of atypical pneumonia virus has a rather low rate of infectability, after the patient becomes sick his effectiveness to recover is clear, the development of the illness is moderate yet these are SARS-like symptoms, this is to say that the symptoms were like SARS."

Zhou further added that other new emerging diseases also showed a similar tendency to be less viral in succeeding generations.

China was the country worst affected by the SARS epidemic, infecting 5,327 people nationwide and killing 349.

TERRA.WIRE