China Confirms Two More SARS Cases

China confirmed two more cases of SARS on Saturday as millions of people hit the roads during the country’s peak travel season, risking a spread of the respiratory disease.

The patients, a 20-year-old waitress and a 35-year-old businessman, had already been identified as suspected SARS cases. After extensive tests, the Chinese Health Ministry confirmed that both have severe acute respiratory syndrome, the illness that last year afflicted more than 8,000 people around the world, killing 774 of them.

Both patients are from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where last year’s outbreak of the disease first appeared. The waitress, whose last name is Zhang, works in a restaurant that serves wild game, which the World Health Organization believes may be a source of the infection.

After a weeklong investigation in southern China, a team of WHO experts said they had detected the SARS virus in civet cats, a local delicacy, bound for the restaurant where Zhang works. The virus was identical to that carried by Zhang and a 32-year-old television producer named Luo, identified as the country’s first SARS patient this winter.

Fearing that connection, the Chinese government had already ordered the slaughter of thousands of the weasel-like civet cats and has practically eliminated them from southern China’s bustling markets.

But WHO experts warn that they still don’t know how the disease jumped from animals to humans. What they do know is that this year’s strain of SARS appears to be a less virulent form than last winter’s. Both Zhang and Luo have recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, and the third patient, whose last name is Yang, remains in stable condition.

Unlike last year, none of the people who have been in contact with the SARS patients have developed any symptoms.

That’s good news for a country that has just begun the busiest travel season of the year -- the weeklong Lunar New Year celebrations, which start Thursday. Millions of people, including many migrant workers who toil in China’s wealthier cities, will head home for the family holiday. The government estimates that Chinese will make 1.89 billion trips by bus, train, plane and ship.

Authorities have already begun temperature checks at airports to screen out anyone with a fever. Because of China’s initial cover-up of the outbreak when it emerged last winter, the sick unknowingly spread the disease throughout the country, and other parts of the world.

As China steps up vigilance to halt the resurgence of SARS, another disease is threatening to add anxiety to the holiday season in Asia.

Bird flu has killed four people, and may have caused eight other deaths, in Vietnam and has been detected in South Korea and Japan. A milder strain has been found in Taiwan.

So far, the virus has not been found on the Chinese mainland. But chicken, which is highly susceptible to the virus, is a staple on the Chinese dinner table, especially during the holidays.

The Chinese government has banned all poultry imports from the infected countries and stepped up inspection of the local supply, even conducting health checks for passengers traveling from the affected areas.