WHO doctors yesterday searched a Guangzhou restaurant that employed a waitress suspected of having Sars. They hope to determine if the masked palm civet cats served up there could have transmitted the virus.
The organisation said it was taking the case of the 20-year-old woman seriously but had yet to see any sign that an epidemic of Sars was about to sweep out of southern China, as it did last year.
The team used cotton swabs to take samples to test for the presence of the coronavirus. Initial tests were to be conducted at the Guangdong Centre for Disease Control.
WHO team leader Robert Brennan said the experts also spoke to employees at the Tongdeli restaurant to learn how it functioned. 'We looked at how things worked in the restaurant, where food was handled and how the ventilation system worked,' Dr Brennan said.
Later, at Xinyuan market, where about 50 stalls sold masked palm civets before they were banned, the doctors took swab samples and also took pictures of boars, peacocks, and cats crammed into a cage.
The market, which used to be a squalid zoo with dead animals and excrement on the floor, had been cleaned up and disinfected for the visit. But WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said the market might still hold some clues.
He said: 'At Amoy Gardens [the Ngau Tau Kok estate where a virulent Sars outbreak claimed 42 lives] some of the apartments had been cleaned several times but we were still able to find something.'