China reports 28 new Sars cases, seven more deaths

BEIJING - China reported on Saturday the lowest number of new Sars cases since the government ordered the full reporting of the spread of the disease.

The health ministry said seven more people had died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and another 28 were infected in the 24 hours to 10am (2pm NZT) on Saturday.

It said 19 of the latest cases were in Beijing, also the lowest daily Sars toll in the worst hit city in the world since April 20, when the government admitted it had been covering up the scale of the outbreak.

The low numbers continue a steadily falling trend since the beginning of the month, though state media have warned it is too early to say the deadly epidemic has stabilised.

The World Health Organisation also said Beijing was omitting some mild cases of the flu-like virus, casting doubt on the sharp decline.

The new figures take the death toll to 282 and the number of cases to 5209 in China, where the first Sars case appeared in the southern province of Guangdong in November.

An official from the provincial Centre for Disease Control told Reuters the epidemic was "under control" in Guangdong, once the ground zero of Sars. It reported two cases on Saturday, the ninth day day in a row it registered three new cases or less.

"We came to the conclusion based on three aspects," said the official, who declined to give his name. "First, the newly infected number declined to an average of two or three new cases every day. Second, more than 90 per cent of patients have recovered. Finally, the death rate is the lowest in the world."

Beijing lifted a quarantine on Saturday at the Peking University People's Hospital that was paralysed for over three weeks by the killer pathogen, state media said.

But state television said it would be another week before the hospital reopened to outpatients.

The hospital, never designated to house Sars patients, was locked down with more than 1,400 patients and health workers inside on April 23 after the virus spiralled out of control in its special fever ward and infected at least 60 health workers.

The World Health Organisation said on Saturday some confused Chinese doctors were not fully reporting cases due to misunderstandings about the symptoms.

The WHO criticised China in April for dramatically under-reporting cases of Sars and the world's most populous country responded by sacking its health minister and the mayor of Beijing for negligence.

After visits by WHO officials to Beijing hospitals, the United Nations agency said it was concerned that some cases were being excluded because patients had no known contact with a Sars victim or because they had mild symptoms that soon cleared up.

"They fit the case definition but because they get better in a few days they are not seen as probable cases," Daniel Chin, the head of WHO's Beijing team of Sars experts, said in a statement.

The patients were being sent home or moved out of isolation wards to general wards, where they could infect others, he said.

"Clinicians are making this decision because there's an assumption that Sars patients must be very sick. But there's a spectrum of severity for Sars," Chin said.

Taiwan, the third worst affected area after mainland China and Hong Kong, said on Saturday the number of cases there had jumped by 34 to 308 -- putting more pressure on an island that has already been hit hard by the disease.

"If the spread of Sars lasts for several more months, I don't know if we can stand it," said Wu Ah-chung, a French restaurant chef. With patrons too scared to dine out, he said, sales had fallen by a third

Taiwan's health minister quit on Friday to take responsibility for the spread of the virus through the island's hospitals. A large Taipei department store closed its doors on Saturday for four days of cleaning, after a staff member was hospitalised as a suspected Sars case.

"We don't have to shut down according to law, but we decided to adopt the strictest standards to protect consumers," a spokesman at Dayeh Takashimaya store told reporters.

Singapore, where Sars has killed 28 people, is set to be taken off the World Health Organisation's list of Sars-affected regions by Sunday if no new infections are reported.

The city-state has been counting down to Sunday but got a fright this week when there was a suspected outbreak at a mental hospital. The government said this had turned out to be a case of common flu rather than Sars.

The WHO says 20 days of no new cases -- or two incubation periods -- are needed before declaring Sars under control. Canada came off the list on Thursday and Vietnam last month. New infections are dropping in Hong Kong, but the WHO said it could be several weeks before the city got to the point of declaring no new cases.

Hong Kong reported just three new cases on Friday, the lowest one-day tally since the epidemic hit the city. It was the 13th day in a row in which new infections were in single digits.

"We think that the outbreak has come under control in Hong Kong and that soon there will be no new cases," David Heymann, the WHO's head of communicable diseases, said.

Face masks were a common sight in Taipei streets on Saturday. Passengers on the city's mass rail network were required to wear them, as were restaurant workers, who faced fines if caught without one.

Worldwide there have been at least 7770 Sars cases, with 610 deaths from the disease.

- REUTERS