GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - A waitress in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong was declared a suspected SARS case on Thursday, the second to emerge in China since an epidemic that swept the world ended last year.

The Health Ministry said the 20-year-old waitress, was suspected of having Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome after having been in hospital for nearly two weeks.

"Forty-eight people who had had close contact with her have been isolated and 52 others who had normal contacts have been observed," the provincial health department said. None of them had displayed SARS symptoms, which include a relentless high fever and dry cough.

A television producer confirmed this week as China's first SARS case since last year has recovered and he was released from hospital in Guangzhou on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

SARS killed about 800 people worldwide last year, about 300 of them in China.

The television producer's case has been linked to coronaviruses also found in wild civet cats, which are regarded as a delicacy in southern China.

Health officials this week banned the sale of the animals and began a massive cull in the province to prevent the spread of the disease, which has led to stepped up health screening at airports and border crossings in Asia.

There have been reports the waitress, from the central province of Henan, had been serving wild game, but provincial health officials declined to comment.

PRIME SUSPECT

The woman first reported suffering a fever on December 26 and was receiving treatment under quarantine at the Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital, one of three city hospitals designated to handle SARS patients.

She had had a normal temperature for seven straight days and authorities have stepped up protective measures for medical staff, Xinhua said.

A World Health Organization spokesman said they were investigating but had no immediate comment.

SARS, a flu-like illness, infected about 8,000 people around the world last year, about two-thirds of them in China, savaged airline and tourism industries around Asia and made facemasks part of everyday clothing.

China has given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter of about 10,000 civet cats, the prime suspect in the spread of the disease, and has launched a rat and cockroach extermination campaign.

Chinese health authorities said a gene sample from the sick producer resembled that of a coronavirus found in civets.

With the return of the northern winter, health officials have been watching closely for a reemergence of SARS, which experts say is spread by droplets in coughs and sneezes.

Two previous cases, in Singapore and Taiwan, were linked to medical research accidents.