100 More Sars Cases in Beijing

Beijing yesterday added more than 100 cases to its Sars total, only one day after the figure had been revised upwards 10 times in a dramatic but belated recognition of the crisis.

The Chinese capital's total now stands at 458 with 20 deaths, in contrast to the previous official figure of 37 cases.

A World Health Organisation official said another 100 suspected cases could soon be confirmed.

The ruling state council has sent investigation teams to all the Chinese provinces - some of whom still claim they have not registered a single case of Sars.

The under-reporting of the spread of the virus is being widely denounced, with little attempt to deny there had been deliberate concealment.

"Some officials have covered up the epidemic," said the official Xinhua news agency, "because they weigh their own performance as more important than the life of the people."

Many people are staggered by the extent of the government's failure to gather proper statistics or admit the extent of the crisis for several months.

"The truly upsetting thing is even the government doesn't seem to know any better than us," said a journalist based in Guangdong province where the epidemic originated.

WHO's China representative, Henk Bekedam, said yesterday that Beijing still had problems curbing Sars, and he would be surprised if the much lower figures from Shanghai - where a WHO team is now visiting - did not rise.

The main challenge, he said, was in the provinces, especially those with "limited resources". More are reporting their first recorded cases, including Gansu, Zhejiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

The ministry of health has ordered that hospitals which refuse to treat Sars patients be "severely punished", after reports that some rural hospitals were turning away patients who could not pay. The Health News newspaper said the government would allocate 900m yuan (£75m) for Sars in China's poorer western provinces.

Meanwhile, one of the scientists who discovered the HIV virus warned yesterday of a looming health catastrophe if Sars combines with Aids.

Professor Luc Montagnier said there was a high risk that Sars could spread among the growing population of Aids sufferers in China.

According to the French biochemist, the twin dangers of a contagion among people with weak immunity systems would be an increase in the fatality rate - about 5% of Sars patients die - and the creation of an ideal breeding ground for the virus in bodies which are not able to fight back.

"This could happen in south China, where Sars broke out and where a large number of HIV patients are not adequately treated," Mr Montagnier said. "If Sars and Aids combine, it would be a disaster."

Public health experts in China warned that the dangers of this deadly viral cocktail were very real in Guangdong province where insufficient quarantine measures were in place to separate HIV/Aids and Sars patients.

According to one witness, at the hospital in Guangzhou where the first Sars cases were discovered, patients with HIV/Aids are being treated on the same floor as those with Sars. The groups are kept apart and use separate lifts but with so little known about Sars the risks of transmission are high.

Thousands of Britons are abandoning plans to travel to Hong Kong and China as the virus continues to spread, it emerged yesterday.

"The flights are full coming out of Hong Kong and are significantly down going into Hong Kong," said a spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic, which is continuing to operate one flight a day to the city.

A BA spokesman said: "Demand has fallen so we are quite comfortable operating a daily service. It is affecting BA but I do not think it has hit us as hard as some Asian carriers."

About 308,000 Britons travel to Hong Kong and 258,000 to China each year, according to the Association of British Travel Agents. All passengers are screened before they board flights to London.

There have been six cases of Sars in the UK, with just one of the victims still in hospital.

Asia unable to mask Sars cost, page 17 More at guardian.co.uk/sars