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Number of new cases shows SARS retreating in Asia

China reported its lowest daily numbers of SARS cases since April in the latest sign that the virus is retreating in Asia, but Canadian health authorities were on high alert, investigating four recent deaths possibly caused by SARS.

The economic impact of SARS keeps spreading. Northwest Airlines expects to furlough 150 more pilots because of cutbacks in Asian flights stemming from travelers' fears about the virus, the pilots' union said.

The global death toll was at least 767 with more than 8,300 people sickened since the virus first appeared in southern China in November. Most of the victims have been in China and Hong Kong.

China reported no new SARS fatalities yesterday and two new cases, the lowest figures for a single day since authorities began in April to report cases on a daily basis. The death toll remained at 332 out of 5,330 cases.

In hard-hit Hong Kong, the disease also seems to be tapering off, but three more deaths were announced yesterday, including Wong Kang-tai, 53, a ward attendant at the Prince of Wales Hospital, who was infected with SARS while taking care of patients in March.

Wong is the seventh front-line health-care worker in Hong Kong to die of SARS, among the territory's 281 fatalities.

Hong Kong's political leader, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, said he was deeply saddened by Wong's death.

The largest outbreak outside Asia has been in Canada's largest city, Toronto, where authorities thought they had beaten the disease until a new cluster of infections last month in two of the city's hospitals.

Autopsies on three of the four who died at Toronto's Rouge Valley Centenary hospital came back positive, although they are still not officially confirmed as SARS deaths.

Dr. James Young, Ontario's commissioner of public safety, said the deaths left health officials searching for more answers.

"No matter how well we do, it only takes one case to start it all over again," he said. This virus, he added, "is extremely difficult to control."

The city's official SARS death toll remained at 30, but the number of cases rose by three to 46. Some 7,350 people have been quarantined.

Meanwhile, trade ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum are set to meet in Thailand this week to sign off on an emergency plan to revive the region's tourism industry and other businesses that have been hard hit by the outbreak of SARS.

Economic growth rates across Asia have dropped because of the disease -- Taiwan by 0.9 percentage points, Hong Kong by 1.8, Singapore by 1.1 and China by 0.2 -- according to the Asian Development Bank.

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