A waitress in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong was declared a suspected SARS case this morning.
It was the second case to emerge in China since an epidemic spread by travellers ended last year.
Meanwhile, two of three members of a Hong Kong television crew who came down with a fever after returning from southern China have tested negative for SARS, a government spokesman said today.
Test results on the third worker are still pending, he added.
The three, from Hong Kong station TVB, had visited a wild animal market and a hospital in Guangzhou city where a man suspected of having SARS was being treated. The man was later confirmed to have the deadly virus but recovered and has since been discharged.
China's Health Ministry said the 20-year-old waitress, was suspected of having Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome after having been in hospital for nearly two weeks.
"Forty-eight people who had had close contact with her have been isolated and 52 others who had normal contacts have been observed," the provincial health department said. None of them had displayed SARS symptoms, which include a relentless high fever and dry cough.
A 32-year-old television producer confirmed this week as China's first SARS case since last year has recovered and was discharged from hospital in Guangzhou today.
SARS killed about 800 people worldwide last year, about 300 of them in China. The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday begins on January 22nd when hundreds of millions of people move around the country and the region, visiting home and going on holiday.