The first suspected case in Britain of a severe form of pneumonia, which the World Health Organisation has described as a "worldwide health threat", was being investigated last night.
The condition, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), has no known cause and cannot be treated with standard drugs. It has been linked to nine deaths worldwide. Although some reports trace it back to China last November, experts have labelled a case in Hanoi last month as the first one.
More than 400 suspected cases have been reported in China, Canada, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong and a case is also being investigated in Germany. The case in Frankfurt is that of a 32-year-old doctor from Singapore who was removed from a plane at Frankfurt airport on Saturday and put in quarantine after displaying symptoms of the disease. He is believed to have treated cases of the infection in Singapore.
The suspected UK case is that of a man who travelled from Hong Kong to Amsterdam on a KLM flight on Saturday and then onwards from Amsterdam to Manchester.
The UK Department of Health said evidence suggested infection was passed on mainly through close contact, such as family members and healthcare workers. However, it said if people who were on the same flights as the man developed high fever and chest symptoms, such as a cough or breathing problems, they should contact a doctor and explain their travel history.
The man is now being treated in a specialist infectious diseases unit at North Manchester General Hospital.
Since previous cases have seen the bug spread to healthcare workers, the man is in isolation at the hospital.
At the weekend, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the bug "a worldwide health threat". However, yesterday its head of communicable diseases, Mr David Heymann, said there seemed little chance of the respiratory disease becoming a world pandemic. "The likelihood of a pandemic is minimal," he said.
Cases of infection reported in Canada and Europe all involve people who had either just been in south-east Asia or who had family members who had. Two suspected cases in Geneva, Switzerland, turned out to be false alarms.
The virus is continuing to spread in Hong Kong where 47 medical workers are now infected. Sixteen people have symptoms in Singapore and in Hanoi, 41 people are being treated for the illness.
Yesterday, Singapore government officials urged travellers to avoid Hong Kong, Hanoi and Guandong province in China.
A source from the Ministry of Health in Singapore dismissed fears expressed in the US media about a connection between the outbreak and bio-terrorism. "There is no suggestion of a terrorist threat", said a Ministry of Health official in response to reports that staff at the US Centre for Disease Control were "keeping an open mind" on the subject.
Additional reporting: Reuters and PA