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The latest outbreak includes four suspected cases of SARS. They are three relatives of a nurse, identified as Ms. Li, 20, who acquired the disease while caring for Ms. Song, and a person who had contact with Ms. Li in a hospital in Beijing. The outbreak also includes a potential second chain of transmission from a Mr. Yang. He is a graduate student who is suspected of having acquired SARS in the same laboratory in Beijing on April 17, nearly a month after Ms. Song acquired her infection there. So far, health officials have not traced any transmission from Mr. Yang to other people

China said yesterday it had sealed off its main laboratory for SARS research after an apparent safety breach there led to four confirmed and suspected cases, including a death, in a new outbreak of the respiratory disease. As officials tried to determine the extent of the new outbreak, they set up emergency controls and began tracing contacts of all those confirmed or suspected to have contracted SARS. The four patients had been cared for in five hospitals but were not initially put in isolation. One patient travelled on three trains while she had symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Song and [Li] were confirmed cases. [Wei] and [Yang] are suspected cases of SARS, officials said

There is also concern about the recent travels of one of the cases, a 26-year-old medical graduate student, surnamed Song, who studied at the SARS lab. She traveled on at least three trains; two of the trips came after she had developed a fever and other symptoms. Song's mother, who cared for her and traveled with her, fell ill with pneumonia symptoms in April and died on Monday. She has been posthumously identified as a suspected SARS case. Chinese officials, who were harshly criticized for their mismanagement of the original SARS outbreak, appeared to be responding swiftly. Efforts were under way to find people who had come into contact with the SARS patients

Questions immediately arose about the apparent breach in the Beijing laboratory and why doctors and health officials had not been more alert to the possibility that the patient in the first case, [Song], had SARS earlier in the course of her illness, particularly because she worked in the SARS laboratory that tests specimens sent from all over China and that is a leader in research on the virus

There is also concern about the recent travels of one of the patients, a 26-year-old medical graduate student, surnamed Song, who studied at the SARS lab. She traveled on at least three trains; two of the trips came after she had developed a fever and other symptoms. Ms. Song's mother, who cared for her and traveled with her, fell ill with pneumonia symptoms this month and died Monday. She has been posthumously identified as someone suspected of having contracted SARS. At the hospital, one of Ms. Song's nurses was Ms. Li, the woman identified Thursday by Chinese officials as suspected of having SARS. On Friday, officials reclassified Ms. Li as a confirmed SARS patient. Ms. Li, 20, remains hospitalized in Beijing, but state media have reported that her temperature is now normal. The official New China News Agency reported that Ms. Song tested positive for SARS antibodies on Wednesday. Health officials from Beijing went to Anhui and tested her again. She again tested positive on Friday and was deemed a confirmed SARS patient. The news agency said that officials in Anhui cremated Mrs. [Wei]'s body on Friday after taking medical samples. Initial testing suggested that Mrs. Wei suffered from heart problems, but the report noted that more pathology testing was necessary to determine a specific cause of death. Dr. Hall, however, said she ''died of pneumonia of an unknown cause that is likely to be SARS.''

There is also concern about the recent travels of one of the cases, a 26-year-old medical graduate student, surnamed Song, who studied at the SARS lab. She traveled on at least three trains; two of the trips came after she had developed a fever and other symptoms. Song's mother, who cared for her and traveled with her, fell ill with pneumonia symptoms in April and died on Monday. She has been posthumously identified as a suspected SARS case. Chinese officials, who were harshly criticized for their mismanagement of the original SARS outbreak, appeared to be responding swiftly. Efforts were under way to find people who had come into contact with the SARS patients. Officials also closed the Institute of Virology at China's Centers for Disease Control, where the infections originated, according to a statement on the Web site of the Ministry of Health. They are testing the lab and have put some employees under medical observation. Graph: 1. SARS UPDATE (TEXT, p.16); Map: 2. Countries with SARS cases/SARS deaths (p.16)

The cases involve two graduate students who worked at the Institute of Viral Disease Control of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and who were reported to have become ill nearly a month apart. One was identified only as a Ms. Song, 26, who became ill about March 25; the other was identified as a Mr. Yang, 31, whose onset of illness was April 17. The other two cases involve Song's mother, identified as a Ms. Wei, who died on Monday, and a nurse, identified as a Ms. Li, who cared for Song. Questions immediately arose about the apparent breach in the Beijing laboratory and why doctors and health officials had not been more alert to the possibility that Song had SARS earlier in the course of her illness, particularly because she worked in the SARS laboratory that tests specimens sent from all over China and is a leader in research on the virus

Questions immediately arose about the apparent breach in the Beijing laboratory and why doctors and health officials had not been more alert to the possibility that the patient in the first case, [Song], had SARS earlier in the course of her illness, particularly because she worked in the SARS laboratory that tests specimens from all over China

Health officials say that any new case of avian flu must be taken seriously because it can spread rapidly among birds and it can be quite serious in humans on the rare occasions when they are infected. In recent years, cases of avian flu in Asia, Europe and North America have prompted the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks. The World Health Organization has sounded an alarm because some strains of the virus -- not the one found in Westchester -- have killed people, including at least 16 victims in Vietnam and Thailand early this year. It was not until February that C.D.C. tested the sample, when scientists there found that the virus was not from the H1 group, Dr. [Nancy J. Cox] said. A subsequent test ruled out another family of flu viruses, Type B. Further testing showed that it was Type A, but not the H1, H3 or H5 subtypes. Finally, on March 17, scientists using other tests identified the virus as H7N2. The next day, Dr. Cox said, C.D.C. notified health officials in New York that they had a suspect human case of avian flu. To be certain that the sample had not been contaminated in a laboratory, they did further tests

The findings suggest that unidentified nonalcoholic components in beer and spirits may play an important role in precipitating gout attacks, a form of arthritis, said the head of the team, Dr. Hyon Choi of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The participants in Choi's study were 47,150 gout-free male health professionals who answered a questionnaire when they entered the study in 1986 and then every two years until 1998. Of the participants, 730 developed the disease. More research is needed to identify such possible factors and to determine whether changing the type of alcoholic beverage or reducing the consumption of alcohol would cut the incidence of gout, Choi's team said