A 39-year-old man who was diagnosed as infected with the Sars virus in neighbouring Singapore did not contract the virus in Malaysia, a senior health official here said today.

The last-minute case o­n Sunday shattered Singapore's dream of being taken off the World Health Organization's (WHO) list of Sars-affected countries.

Lee Chong Kian, a Malaysian who is a permanent resident in Singapore where he works as a surveyor, was likely to have contracted the disease while in Singapore as he had not fallen sick when visiting Malaysia's Johor state o­n May 1 and May 5, Dr Mohd Ismail Merican, deputy director-general of health said.

Lee was admitted to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the Sars-designated treatment centre in Singapore, after coming down o­n May 11 with fever, a symptom of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars). He was reported as a confirmed Sars case o­n Sunday.

No local transmission

Singapore officials said Lee had visited Malaysia's southern Johor state three times since April and had no known contact with Sars cases in Singapore, indicating he might have caught the bug in Malaysia.

Ismail said there had been no local transmission of Sars reported from Johor during and after the period.

"If he had contracted Sars (while) in Malaysia, we would already have got it (the notification o­n Sars case from Johor)," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

Malaysia's Johor state is linked to Singapore by a busy causeway and bridge which tens of thousands of people cross over every day.

Singapore, where Sars has killed 28 people, had been aiming at being removed from the WHO's list of SARS-affected countries o­n Sunday -- 20 days after the last local transmission was reported.

Tracing the contacts

Ismail said Malaysian authorities would attempt to trace all those people Lee could have come in contact with while he was in Johor.

"We will try to establish who he had met o­n May 5 in Johor and we hope our Singapore counterparts will provide more information as Lee's family is in Singapore," he said.

Two people have died from seven Sars infections in Malaysia and there has been a major impact o­n business . AFP