Hebei SARS rumor instigator arrested

A man was arrested and placed into a two-year labor re-education program for spreading a SARS rumor online, which alleged that one death from a SARS infection had been confirmed at a hospital in Baoding, Hebei Province. Health authorities denied the rumor agian Monday.

According to local police, the owner of a website, surnamed Liu, published the false information on February 19, and then forwarded it many times with a link to his site to increase traffic. He was arrested Sunday after the rumor had caused many Web users to become concerned.

"Liu's behavior could have caused a massive public panic and thus was dangerous," Feng Yujun, a professor at the Renmin University of China Law School, told the Global Times.

On February 24, the Apple Daily reported that the news about an outbreak of the SARS virus in PLA 252 Hospital went viral online, and bloggers alleged that more than 100 people had been hospitalized in isolation wards, while one patient had already died from the disease.

The allegation was officially denied by the Ministry of Health on Saturday, which announced in a statement that the illness was an adenovirus infection, not a recurrence of SARS, H1N1 swine flu or bird flu.

The ministry's spokesperson, Deng Haihua, reaffirmed Monday that the virus was well under control, and by Saturday the majority of the patients in the hospital had merely experienced mild symptoms.

"It has been confirmed that the disease is a kind of respiratory tract infection caused by adenovirus type 55," said Deng Monday.

Adenovirus is a common cause of respiratory infection, and it usually leads to cold-like symptoms.

A local resident, surnamed Li, told the Global Times that residents in Baoding were not panicked. "I think the SARS virus outbreak is merely a rumor on the Internet," Li said.