China declares Beijing SARS free after 8 months

Beijing's last 12 SARS patients have recovered from the disease, official media said today, marking an apparent end to the scourge…

Beijing's last 12 SARS patients have recovered from the disease, official media said today, marking an apparent end to the scourge in China where the virus emerged eight months ago before spreading across the world.

The World Health Organisation said the reported recoveries were expected but it was still on alert given the possibility the disease could rebound in China or elsewhere.

The 12 patients were still in hospital receiving treatment for other illnesses but no longer showed symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and were not infectious, the Communist Party newspaper People's Dailyquoted Beijing's deputy health chief Mr Liang Wannian as saying.

"Beijing has no more SARS patients," he said.

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Mr Liang's declaration that Beijing was SARS-free was reported a day after a national anti-SARS conference, at which President Hu Jintao attributed China's successful SARS battle to Communist Party leadership.

Asked about the timing of the announcement clearing Beijing of SARS cases, a WHO spokesman said the UN body had no reason to suspect China, which drew widespread condemnation for initially concealing the extent of the outbreak, was not telling the truth.

Some medical experts say SARS may only be dormant and could return once the hot summer weather cools off. Others say it is possible there are milder, mutated versions of the disease that are virtually impossible to detect and may be circulating among the wider population.

SARS first surfaced in southern China last November and was spread around the world by travellers, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 800. Air travel was badly hit by the scare, as were the leisure and tourism industries.

The virus killed more than 340 people in China - 190 in Beijing alone - and infected more than 5,300 people nationwide.

After failing to divulge the scale of contagion for months, the government sacked the health minister and Beijing's mayor and mobilised the masses to fight the deadly flu-like illness.