WHO says China Sars cases could be much higher

The World Health Organisation said China, epicentre of a flu-like virus that has killed about 160 people worldwide, had failed to report all its cases and the capital, Beijing, could have five times the official number.

The virus, which is new to science and has no known cure, has been carried by air travellers to around 22 countries in the past six weeks, infecting over 3,400 people.

Hong Kong, the second most affected area after mainland China, reported five more deaths yesterday and promised stricter border curbs to control the disease which has severely hit business and scared away tourists.

"Indeed there have been cases of Sars - there is no question about that - that have also not been reported officially," German WHO virologist Wolfgang Preiser said after a visit to a military hospital in Beijing.

"The military seems to have its own reporting system which does not link in presently with the municipal one," he told a news conference yesterday.

WHO officials called for full disclosure from the country where Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) first appeared in November and which has been criticised widely for not sharing information with the rest of the world soon enough.

Officials were asked how many cases Beijing really had. "I would guess the range would be between 100 and 200," WHO official Alan Schnur replied. Only thirty-seven cases have been officially reported in the capital.

Sars has killed at least 65 people and infected 1,445 in mainland China - nearly half of the world's cases - since it first surfaced in the southern province of Guangdong.

China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore are racing to launch swift new tests to home in on the virus.

Germany-based Artus Biotech says it plans to give some research centres free kits that will drastically cut the time needed to diagnose Sars.

"It takes roughly about two hours to perform the test and get results," Dr Finn Zelder, managing director of Artus Malaysia, told Reuters in Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore said it hopes to have a diagnostic test ready in a week following 12 deaths from Sars in the tiny island nation in less than a month.

The state-run Genome Institute of Singapore said its new test would take three hours and may be sensitive enough to detect the virus in its early stages before a person develops Sars symptoms such as high fever and a dry cough.

"We need to find the kit, get it tested, validated and then applied for general use. We will put out the kits on Friday," Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said in a news conference.

To help detect Sars cases, Wong said Singapore started to use a thermal imaging system at its Changi airport on Friday for passengers arriving on flights from China and Hong Kong.

But in a sign of how tough the fight against the illness has become, Hong Kong scientists said they may have detected a more virulent form of the virus in the densely populated city where the disease has killed 61 people and infected 1,268.

Sars mostly takes the lives of the elderly and those already sick, but since Saturday there have been more deaths reported among younger people in Hong Kong.

Microbiology professor Yuen Kwok-yung said scientists believed the virus "has become slightly more virulent" on a housing estate in the territory, but they had no firm proof.

Underlining the financial impact, Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa told a news conference an economic package to ease the pain felt by businesses and the city's nearly seven million residents would be implemented in less than a month.

"We will take economic measures as soon as possible... they may worsen the budget deficit but we'll make sure they won't affect the stability of Hong Kong's financial system," he said.

Chinese medical workers disinfect a coach of the subway in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, yesterday.