GENEVA

SARS death toll reduced

Taiwan has almost halved its figures for the number of people infected with the SARS virus and ruled that many previously reported deaths were caused by other factors, the U.N. health agency said Friday.

The World Health Organization said the change in data from Taiwan meant the global death toll from several acute respiratory syndrome was now officially 774. In August it had reported a figure of 916.

“Everybody is going back to re-examine what is happening because we have finally got some breathing time,” said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson.

Afghanistan

Explosion kills seven, wounds six others

Afghan civilians accidentally set off an explosive inside a home Friday near American military headquarters, killing seven people and wounding six others, a U.S. official said.

People in a village near Bagram Air Base, center for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, were handling the device when it blew up, villager Mohammed Nazeer said. Many Afghans try to make money selling military debris as scrap metal.

“It looks like a guy was taking out the explosives from a cluster bomb,” U.S. Maj. David Long said at the scene.