The state media in China says that a mysterious disease has now killed 17 farm workers and left 41 others sick, in southwest China, after they handled sick or dead livestock.
Authorities in Sichuan province have dismissed any suggestion that the deaths were caused by bird flu or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
This has been affirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO spokesman Bob Dietz, in Manila, has agreed that from the symptoms described to them by the government, the outbreak does not appear to be related to bird flu, as it does not have a large pneumonia content or a large respiratory problem.
Apparently a senior official with the Sichuan provincial health department, has said that the deaths were probably caused by a bacteria that spreads among pigs, Dietz concurs with this theory and says the symptoms described to them would fit a pig pathogen, but they will wait for an analysis from the Ministry of Health before confirming this.
SARS emerged in south China in 2002 and spread across 30 countries, infecting nearly 8,500 people and killing about 800, and re-appeared again in China last year, but with only a few isolated cases.
Initially the Chinese government was accused of covering up the disease.
A bird flu virus that has killed over 50 people in Asia since late 2003, has prompted a high alert on the part of global health officials.
In this mystery outbreak, initially, 20 farm workers became ill suffering fever, nausea and haemorrhaging after handling sick or dead pigs and sheep in 12 towns and 15 villages in Jianyang city and Ziyang city's Yanjiang district.
As health workers combed villages, more cases were reported and by noon on Saturday, 58 people were suspected of contracting the strange disease in Ziyang and neighbouring Neijiang.