China and international health experts have stepped up efforts to contain Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the poor rural hinterland.
The foreign affairs office in Beijing said more than 23,000 people had been quarantined in the Chinese capital, an increase of more than 4,000 from the previous day.
But attention is shifting increasingly to the countryside where efforts to contain SARS are hampered by inadequate medical facilities and poor information.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts were spreading out to Chinese provinces in hopes of better understanding the spread of SARS amid fears it may be much worse than admitted, a WHO official said today.
Up until now, the WHO's focus has been on Beijing and the source of the outbreak in southern Guangdong province, which have seen the largest number of cases.
But WHO officials said it was unknown why neighbouring provinces were reporting only a small number of cases, especially given the large flow of migrant workers.
China reported 12 new SARS deaths and 75new cases today, taking the nationwide death toll to 252 and the cumulativenumber of cases to 5,013.Nine of the deaths were in Beijing, two in Inner Mongolia andone in Tianjin.China remains at the centre of the global SARS crisis, which has claimed 535 lives worldwide and infected more than 7,377.
With the number of new infections elsewhere in the world slowing, there were a few hopeful signs of a gradual return to normality.
AFP