A man in South China's Guangdong Province is fighting for his life after being diagnosed with a fresh case of the pig-borne streptococcus suis infection.

"The man in his 40s contracted the bacteria through a wound on his hand when he was butchering pigs last Thursday," Yu Yedong, director of Guangdong Animal Epidemic Prevention Centre, told China Daily yesterday.

Reportedly from Yangjiang, the man is Guangdong's second reported infection since the start of the recent outbreak. The man was reported to be near death. "His situation is very bad now," Yu said.

Yu said the new case was different from the one in mid-July in Chao'an, as the current victim did not work in a legal slaughter factory but butchered two pigs, which had already died of unspecified diseases, at home without the permission of the agricultural department.

The man fell ill on Thursday night and was sent to a public hospital in Jiangcheng County, Yangjiang, on Friday.

The man's heart stopped on Saturday, Yu said, but he was revived.

The pigs butchered by the victim have already been sold to the market by his wife. Investigators from the provincial health and agricultural departments have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to trace the meat, Yu said.

"We do not know whether the pigs contracted streptococcus suis or not," Yu said. "But nobody has yet been found ill from eating the meat." The man's wife and his two daughters have not contracted the bacteria.

(China Daily August 10, 2005)