There are more signs that the Sars outbreak is stabilising, with only three new cases reported in the past 48 hours The warnings against travel to provinces adjoining Beijing because of Sars could be lifted within days, the World Health Organisation said yesterday amid further signs that the outbreak on the mainland was stabilising. Yesterday the Ministry of Health reported only three more confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome. On Monday there were no new infections. Henk Bekedam, the WHO's chief representative in Beijing, told a seminar on Sars that the WHO might lift travel warnings against some provinces and cities within weeks - or even days - if the current trend continued. But he said it was too early to lift the warning against visiting the capital. The WHO's warnings against non-essential travel to the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia and the city of Tianjin remain in force. Guangdong and Hong Kong were removed from the list on May 23 but both remain on the WHO's list of infected areas. Singapore and Vietnam have been taken off that list. The WHO says that for a travel advisory against a region to be lifted, there must be an average of no more than five cases over three days, the number of patients must not exceed 60, there must be no export of cases, and the mode of transmission must be known in all new cases. WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said Hebei and Tianjin 'more or less' matched the criteria for coming off the travel advisory list and were being considered for a change in status. One of the conditions for removal from the list of infected areas is to have 20 days without new infections. Guangdong has reported no new cases for 17 days, but Mr Cordingley said removal from the list was not automatic. In Guangdong's case there were other factors to consider, given that it was not an isolated province, he said. 'It's not so simple with China. These places are not isolated. They are subject to influences from neighbouring provinces. China cannot be treated as Singapore,' Mr Cordingley said. Furthermore, he said, 'we need to be sure that the data is absolutely accurate'. Guangdong Health Department spokesman Feng Shaomin was not upset that the province would not be taken off the list automatically. 'We have lived with Sars for so long. Whether or not we are taken off the list, we have to continue monitoring the illness strictly for six months. Even then we cannot say we have got rid of it ... not until there is a vaccine,' he said. The first cases of Sars are believed to have appeared in Guangdong in November. Zhong Nanshan, a Guangdong infectious diseases expert, agreed that it might be too early to lift the advisory against travel to Beijing because a large number of patients were still being treated for Sars in the capital's hospitals. 'It is not the right time yet, I think a consolidation period is needed,' he said. Gao Qiang, vice-executive minister of health blamed the mainland's initial failure to control Sars on '[China's] imperfect early warning system, low vigilance [among cadres], and poor handling of emergency situations'. Meanwhile, Bi Shengli, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's antiviral unit, said mainland scientists had developed a diagnostic test for Sars. Taiwan yesterday reported only one new probable Sars infection, the lowest figure in days. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Kyodo
