One more person died of a pig-borne disease in China

One person has died of a pig-borne disease in southern China, the government said Wednesday, and two others are still hospitalized.

The cases, blamed on the bacteria Streptococcus suis, were reported Monday in four different areas in Guangdong province. A fourth person has been discharged from hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency said on its Web site.

It did not give any details on the dead patient and said no new infections have been reported.

A woman who answered the telephone at the Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau refused to give her name or any information about the cases. Provincial government officials said they did not have any updates.

One of the cases, a 27-year-old man from Shenzhen, a city that borders Hong Kong, worked in a market and handled chicken and pork, Xinhua said. The man, surnamed Zhang, was still hospitalized, it said. Three people who had close contact with him have not shown any symptoms, Xinhua said.

Pravda.ru said Monday that four people have been infected by a pig-borne disease , and one has died, the government reported, one day after an epidemic in another part of the country was declared under control.

Streptococcus suis is usually passed on through contact with raw pork or sick swine. Symptoms include high fever, nausea and vomiting, followed by meningitis, hemorrhaging under the skin, toxic shock and sometimes coma. No human-to-human transmissions have been reported.