The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - A man who has been placed in hospital isolation in Baltimore because of symptoms of the SARS virus had stayed in a Cleveland hotel Sunday night.

Matt Carroll, acting director of Cleveland's Department of Public Health, said public health officials in Baltimore provided information about the 40-year-old doctor's brief stay. Carroll did not identify the man, saying only that he stayed in a hotel near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not confirmed that the man has severe acute respiratory syndrome, Carroll said. But if it becomes a confirmed case, the CDC would take the lead in trying to identify anyone who was in close contact to him, he said.

Carroll said the doctor had been in Toronto, where there has been an outbreak of SARS cases, then went to Detroit and flew into Cleveland on Sunday.

He stayed one night and caught a flight to Baltimore on Monday. The doctor was being observed at Johns Hopkins Hospital.