Beijing: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked the Chinese government to take urgent preventive measures to reduce the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) infection among the medical staff and provide more information to the public on the killer epidemic.

The WHO experts made these recommendations after making a field visit to a large hospital, which is not officially designated as a SARS hospital.

The visit "demonstrated the urgent need to review strategies for infection control procedures", the WHO said in a press release.

It noted that the current infection control practices in emergency rooms may have to be modified, since health care workers continue to be infected.

Among front-line Chinese health workers, 15 new cases were reported in the Chinese capital, Beijing. There are now 300 infected health care workers, the WHO noted.

According to figures released by China's Ministry of Health, out of 3,799 confirmed cases of SARS, 778 are medical workers.

Some senior Chinese doctors have died fighting SARS in Beijing municipality and Guangdong and Shanxi provinces.

The WHO said its team of experts are co-operating with officials from the Beijing city's Municipal Health authorities to analyse epidemiological trends, but much missing data remain to be collected, and reports from case investigations must still be completed.

"The public needs to have more information on when and where infection is happening," said Henk Bekedam, WHO's representative China.

PTI