Health experts say China underreporting SARS cases

? There appear to be more cases of SARS in Beijing than officials have acknowledged, a team of visiting scientists reported Wednesday, damaging the Chinese government’s credibility and raising new concern over whether the disease is being tracked accurately.

Also Wednesday the World Health Organization announced that a new member of the coronavirus family had been confirmed as the cause of the disease, allowing scientists to focus their efforts at finding effective treatments and developing a vaccine.

Even after days of intense investigation, the WHO scientists said they could only estimate the number of cases — perhaps 100 to 200 — because of China’s secretive record-keeping and a faulty system of accounting for patients and the people they may have infected. The city’s official tally is 37 cases.

The WHO team said more than 1,000 other patients were being kept under observation because they had exhibited suspicious symptoms, which may account for rumors of cordoned-off Beijing hospitals being inundated with victims.

However, it is unlikely that the city is seeing thousands of cases, team members said.

“We are not talking about a wild, out-of-control outbreak; I don’t have that sense at all,” said Alan Schnur, a Beijing-based member of the WHO investigative team.

The statements at Wednesday’s news conference seemed to conclude that although the outbreak still appears limited in Beijing, the impact on the Chinese government’s credibility is severe and could lead to a new level of fear about the safety of living in or traveling to China’s capital.

“We have very clearly said (to the government): You have an international community that at this time and moment does not trust your figures,” said Henk Bekedam, the WHO representative in China. “Now I think it’s time to start building some confidence, and the way to build confidence is to be very clear about these figures, and also to respond to rumors.”

The WHO team said Chinese health officials had misled the international media last week when they insisted that the official tally of victims included SARS patients being treated at military hospitals. Instead, those patients are counted on a separate, confidential list, the WHO said.

The investigators visited two military hospitals Tuesday, after pressing the government for permission, and they talked to doctors from a third. They said they received a detailed accounting of victims but were barred from disclosing exact figures because of military secrecy rules.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, a virulent strain of atypical pneumonia, first appeared last November in China’s southern province of Guangdong. It traveled to Hong Kong and spread around the world by air travelers and has now infected more than 3,200 and killed 159.

In China, concern over containing the outbreak is growing as the SARS virus has begun to spread to outlying provinces. A critical time is approaching: a weeklong holiday around May 1 in which millions of Chinese travel throughout the country and abroad.