It was just another working day for restaurant waitress Zheng Ling. During the lunchtime rush, she quickly washed a teapot and filled it with water from a basin tap. Just behind her were several cages of civet cats, all awaiting the same destination as the teapot - the dining tables.
At the Tongdeli Restaurant in Guangzhou, pictures of roasted and braised civet cats were hung on the wall as the seasonal attraction for diners.
Ms Zheng, 20, from Henan, had worked at the place for about two months and never dreamed that such an ordinary December day would be the one on which she contracted a potentially lethal virus.
It could have been a case of being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time', said World Health Organisation team leader and epidemiologist Robert Breiman, adding that the waitress probably contracted the coronavirus, which causes Sars, from the civet cats right behind her.
But Ms Zheng and the other two registered cases on the mainland have raised intriguing questions as the WHO traces the virus to its source. Why, for example, was Ms Zheng infected and not other staff? And why, according to a recent Guangzhou study, do 40 per cent of the province's wild-animal traders carry coronavirus antibodies, indicating previous exposure?
Answers are crucial. Investigators are aware that it was during the same season last year that Guangdong was first hit by Sars, which later spread to Hong Kong and the rest of the world, infecting 8,098 people and killing 774. On Christmas Day, Ms Zheng started to feel sick. She developed fever and pneumonia and was admitted to a hospital on New Year's Eve. Last Saturday, she was confirmed as having contracted Sars, the second case in the city after last year's outbreak.
