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Despite progress, WHO says SARS fight not yet over

China reported no new SARS cases yesterday for the first time in at least six weeks, a clear sign the disease is on the retreat in Asia.

But the World Health Organization (WHO), pointing to a renewed outbreak of the disease in Canada, warned the world's worst-hit region that the virus was proving hard to eliminate.

"This is not the time to drop our guard," Bob Dietz, the spokesman for the UN health agency in Beijing, said.

In Taiwan, health officials reported four new probable cases yesterday, bringing the total number of probable cases to 684. The figure marked the fourth straight day of single-digit growth in new cases.

New infections have declined steadily from a record daily rise of 65 cases on May 22, as a raft of outbreaks at the nation's hospitals appeared to be contained.

Taiwan's death toll from SARS remains at 81.

The disease has killed more than 750 people worldwide and infected more than 8,300 since it first appeared in Guangdong Province late last year.

China's Health Ministry said yesterday there had been no new infections in a 24-hour period for the first time since April, when the government came clean after a cover-up that grossly understated the extent of the outbreak.

Hong Kong reported four more cases, the 19th straight day the number of new infections there had been five or less.

SARS has killed 282 people in Hong Kong.

The WHO said it was encouraged by the fall in new cases in China.

"The figures look pretty good. Hard to believe sometimes, but we are taking them on good faith," Dietz said. "What we want to do is deal with it in such a way that it's no longer a threat, which is more than just kind of controlling it or containing it."

Two new deaths were reported in China yesterday, but neither was in Beijing, giving the embattled city its first day without any new cases or deaths since the government vowed to come clean with the figures on April 20.

By 10am yesterday, 334 people had died and 5,328 had been infected in China, but the number of new cases reported has fallen sharply in the past three weeks from more than 100 a day.

But the death toll in Canada's biggest city, Toronto, rose to 31 on Sunday when a 60-year-old woman died and authorities said they were investigating five other deaths for SARS links.

"We take a look at Canada where all of a sudden this thing just pops up seemingly out of nowhere with a really developed health-care system and we realize that it's not an easy thing to get rid of," Dietz said.

More than 5,000 people have been quarantined in Canada, most of them in Toronto, since a new cluster of cases surfaced last month, after the WHO took the city off its list of SARS-affected places.

Nurses are accusing hospital officials of ignoring warnings of Toronto's latest SARS outbreak.

Nurses have accused officials at the city's North York General Hospital of dismissing warnings of a new wave of SARS infections, the Toronto Star reported. The 16,000-member Registered Nurses Association of Ontario called for a "full review" of why hospital officials ignored the warnings.

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