HONG KONG (AFP) - A Hong Kong hospital has raised a new SARS (news - web sites) alert after nine residents of a home for the elderly were treated for fever and respiratory tract infection, a health department spokesman said.

"We are still awaiting results of further tests," he said Friday.

All nine were said to be in a stable condition at Tseung Kong O Hospital in the eastern Kowloon district, he said.

The incident comes after a similar SARS alert in which the first stage of a new three-tier SARS warning was raised for first time early this week.

Seven patients at Hong Kong's Castle Peak Hospital on Wednesday developed high fever and upper respiratory tract infections -- symptoms of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus -- but later tests showed flu.

On Tuesday, a 34-year-old Hong Kong woman suspected of having SARS was cleared by health officials, easing fears of a re-emergence of the disease which killed nearly 300 people in the territory earlier this year.

Earlier this year SARS struck down more than 8,000 people and left more than 900 dead in 32 countries, with some 349 of the fatalities and 5,327 of the infections recorded in China.

Hong Kong was the second worst-affected region by with 297 SARS-related deaths and nearly 1,800 infections.