HONG KONG, May 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A virus found in a wild nocturnal animal and other two species is the likely source of SARS, scientists and World Health Organization said on Friday, May 23.

The evidence solves one scientific mystery because it is the first to show that SARS virus exists outside humans, raising the possibility that it jumped from animals to humans, the New York Times reported.

But the new finding could greatly increase the difficulty of containing SARS in humans because if certain species of wild animals harbor the virus it will be virtually impossible to eradicate the disease, it added.

Scientists in WHO's laboratory network tested 25 specimens from eight species of exotic animals offered for sale in a market in southern Guangdong Province, where the first cases of the human disease are thought to have occurred.

The SARS virus was found in six masked palm civets - a cat-size animal that is served as food - and in the only raccoon dog tested.

Evidence of the infection was also found in the blood of one badger, said the American daily.

The civet is the Himalayan, or masked, palm civet. It is related to the mongoose, resembles a large weasel and is a threatened species.

But whether the species were captured in the wild or raised on farms is not known, WHO said.

Nor, the agency said, is it known whether humans transmitted the virus to animals or vice versa.

Since the WHO first recognized the SARS epidemic in March, scientists have suspected that animals might be involved in the human epidemic.

The reason is that a number of the earliest cases involved food handlers in markets in Guangdong Province who sold live exotic animals for human consumption.

The Chinese government plans to start banning the sale of the civets, which were eaten mainly in the autumn and winter because of the belief that they help people withstand cold weather, said a spokesman for the WHO said.

But a Chinese scientist expressed doubt that the ban would succeed because the civet, in particular, has traditionally been considered a delicacy.

But southern Guangdong province vowed to stop the trade in civets cats. The Guangdong's government issued an all-points bulletin on the endangered wild animal.

"This is an endangered species, the trade in this animal is totally illegal and is happening underground," Feng Shaoming, spokesman for the Guangdong Health Bureau, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Local police and health authorities were to step up actions to disinfect animal markets and hunt out traffickers in the animals, which have been favored by local gourmets as wild and exotic food, he said.

The news came less than a day after the WHO lifted its travel warning covering Hong Kong and China's southern Guangdong province, saying SARS there was now under control.

"WHO is changing this recommendation as the situation in these areas has now improved significantly," it said in a statement.

In the meanwhile, five more people died from SARS in China, although Beijing officials said measures against the disease were working.

China's Health Ministry said that of the five latest deaths, three were in Beijing, one was in Inner Mongolia and the other in Liaoning province, putting the death toll from the disease to 308, with 5,309 confirmed cases.

Noticeably, Hong Kong has reported no new cases of infection, for the first time, the BBC News Online reported.

Hong Kong officials said the SARS virus killed two more people, including a 88-year-old man, taking the local death toll to 262.

Taiwan is also struggling with the world's fastest growing SARS outbreak, with another 55 new cases reported on Friday, May 23, and 10 on Saturday.

The authorities say they are speeding up the analysis of possible infections.

Taiwan is the third-worst affected area - and WHO experts visited the island only after Beijing gave its consent in early May.

And in Canada, two suspected SARS victims died on Friday - part of a group of 20 new suspected cases - just 10 days after the WHO lifted a warning against travel to Toronto.