Beijing: Concerned by the increase in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases in Hebei province that surrounds the Chinese capital Beijing, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has decided to send experts there to help provincial health authorities to contain the spread of the killer disease.

"The WHO experts will visit Hebei province as part of a joint Ministry of Health-WHO team to assess the SARS situation and the capacity to cope with an outbreak," the WHO said in a statement.

It said that four WHO and China's Ministry of Health experts would leave on May 8 for Hebei, which surrounds Beijing and is home to some of the capital's "floating population" of migrant workers.

The number of Probable SARS cases in Hebei has risen sharply in the last few days to a total of 113 on May 6. In just five days between April 30 and May 4, the numbers doubled to 98. There are also 110 suspect SARS cases in the province, the WHO said.

"We feel the team can make a difference here. It's still early on in the epidemic. Our input at this stage could prevent the situation developing into a large outbreak," Alan Schnur, from WHO's China office who will join the team, said.

"There's a lot of movement between the province and the capital so we are concerned about the potential for the disease to spread," he added.

PTI