Sars cases drop in China

China reported a sharply lower number of new Sars cases yesterday as Hong Kong planned an all-out campaign against spitting and litter bugs to clean up the city's image.

Hong Kong reported a single new case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and one more death - figures that reinforce signs that health officials have brought the flu-like virus under control in one of the world's most densely populated cities.

But elsewhere, Canada reported a climbing death toll in their fight against Sars and its resurgence in Toronto sent more than 800 people into quarantine.

Taiwan said yesterday it had 15 probable cases, leading officials to cautiously suggest the virus was being brought under control there after spreading rapidly through the island's health system. But the growing number of suspect cases remained a worry.

China's eight new cases yesterday mark the first single-digit daily increase in infections since the government began coming clean on the extent of the outbreak in mid-April.

China, which has the bulk of the world's more than 8,000 Sars cases, said two more people had died of the illness.

More than 260 people have died of Sars in Hong Kong and 1,726 have been infected.

The World Health Organisation welcomed China's lowest daily increase since April 20 when the health minister and the mayor of Beijing were sacked and the government began reporting openly on the outbreak.

"This is good. We have seen a trend for a while now," said Bob Dietz, spokesman for the WHO in Beijing. But Dietz said there was no timetable on lifting an advisory against travel to the city of 14 million people.

China has now had 317 deaths from Sars and 5,316 cases since the disease first surfaced in the southern province of Guangdong.

In Taiwan, the cabinet's Sars committee said it would announce details of a plan this week to require every Taiwan resident to take their temperatures twice a day for 10 days.