Beijing ? He’s a businessman in his 40s. He has four children and lives in the industrial town of Foshan in southern China.

And, except for a small circle of doctors and Chinese officials, that’s all the world knows about the man who is cited as the world’s first known case — and survivor — of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

As the disease spreads around the globe, little has been released about him — and there is no sign that any more ever will be.

A World Health Organization team that visited Guangdong in the last week was tight-lipped, citing medical confidentiality.

“You wouldn’t want your medical records released, would you?” team spokesman Chris Powell asked reporters who wanted to know more.

Chinese officials say the man’s case was detected Nov. 16. A resident of Foshan in Guangdong province, he recovered and was released from a hospital — it wasn’t revealed which one — in January.

The deputy director of the Guangzhou No. 8 People’s Hospital, which has probably treated the most SARS cases in the province, insisted he didn’t know anything about the first case.

“The case was in Foshan, not Guangzhou,” Ying Chibiao said. “I’m not clear about the details.”

Adding to the disease’s mystery, researchers say the Foshan man infected the four health workers who treated him but not his own children.

“We don’t know for sure whether he is really the first case, or the first case we know about,” said Dr. Meirion Evans, a member of the WHO team. He said researchers would have to compare other cases with the patient to be certain.

Dr. Robert Breiman, the WHO team leader, said he met with the man, who “appeared to be completely healthy.”

“Apparently, when word got out in the press of my visit to see him, it was clear to everyone in his neighborhood that it was him,” Breiman said. “He told me that this created many problems.”

China said Thursday that Guangdong accounted for 44 of the country’s 55 deaths.