Specialists fear that the lethal virus would spread like wildfire

BEIJING, April 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While SARS keeps claiming lives and spreading in different parts of the world, China admitted Sunday, April 20, there were additional 339 “covered-up” cases infected with the lethal Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Beijing.

Prior to the announcement, authorities had claimed there were just 44 cases in Beijing with four fatalities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Of the 339 confirmed cases five were foreigners, although their nationalities were not mentioned.

The nationwide death toll from the epidemic was raised to 79 with 1,807 confirmed cases of the illness, as of April 18. So far 1,165 patients have recovered, including 33 in Beijing.

Vice health minister Gao Qiang told a press conference that the State Council had dispatched a team to every hospital in Beijing to tally the real total number of cases.

"The State Council on April 15 sent an inspection team to Beijing city ... and went to each and every hospital and registered each and every patient," he said.

China came clean after intense international pressure, particularly from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which last week accused the government of covering up the extent of SARS in the capital.

Gao said of the total, 353 people were being treated in military hospitals, 235 in local hospitals and 153 in "other" hospitals.

More than 70 hospitals across the capital had patients, he added.

Chinese Leaders Alarmed

President Hu Jintao and other top leaders stepped into the growing crisis over China's handling of the outbreak, demanding all levels of government fully report the crisis.

The president has called for an end to cover-ups and warned officials face severe punishment if they try to paper over information related to infections and the spread of SARS, CNN reported Sunday.

A health ministry statement gave three explanations as to why the extent of the epidemic had not been reported before.

It said SARS was a new disease and it had proven difficult to come up with a diagnosis and that Beijing had a lot of hospitals and patients were scattered across the city. It, however, admitted lack of enough preparations.

"After SARS erupted, the health ministry did not establish a unified system for collecting, compiling and reporting data on the epidemic in a timely fashion," AFP quoted Gao as saying.

"These problems with our work should be honestly redressed and we should draw experiences and lessons from this and effectively improve our work."

In Beijing's suburban train stations, passengers are handed out leaflets on SARS, part of a public information campaign which has prompted residents to take preventive measures like wearing masks.

Doctors work information hotlines, taking questions from anxious callers. Pharmacies do brisk business selling traditional medicine.

"Just like after 9/11, the American people immediately gathered around the American president so now the whole nation is fighting against terrorism.

And now the Chinese people need to unite against this terrible disease," Tsinghua University Professor Li Xiguang told the U.S. all-news network.