Baoding police in Hebei have sent a website owner to labour camp for two years for spreading a rumour about a case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) at a military hospital.
The website owner posted 'fake information that the People's Liberation Army 252 Hospital in Baoding had confirmed a case of Sars' on their website to raise its profile, police said in an online statement. 'The owner reposted their own postings many times to create influence and disturb social order,' the police said. 'Baoding Public Security Bureau's Xinshi district division sent the person to re-education through labour camp for two years on February 26.'
Re-education through labour, which can last for four years, is a form of administrative detention imposed by police without trial.
Rumours were rife online last week that 'a whole floor of the PLA 252 Hospital was sealed off with suspected Sars patients and a soldier had been confirmed dead with Sars'.
Many people expressed concern but Baoding's health bureau did not deny the outbreak until Friday. The Ministry of Health issued a statement on Saturday reaffirming the denial and said patients at the hospital with respiratory tract infections and fever were not infected with Sars.
'[We have] ruled out Sars, H1N1 swine flu and bird flu, and diagnosed them with a respiratory tract infection caused by adenovirus type 55,' the ministry said. 'Most cases are mild and there has been no critical or fatal case. [It] is under control.'