Beijing: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on May 17 cautioned China about possible "misdiagnosis" of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases in Beijing and called for a task force to rectify the problem as the country reported seven more deaths and 28 new cases of the killer disease.

Expressing concern over the SARS situation in Beijing, currently the epicentre of the epidemic, the WHO said in a statement that it has asked the Beijing government for a task force to be constituted to address this issue.

China on May 17 reported 28 new probable Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome cases and 7 new deaths, bringing the cumulative total to 5,209 probable cases and 282 deaths. Out of this, Beijing reported 19 probable SARS cases.

The daily number of new deaths has also declined from a peak of 15, reported on April 22, to an average of four during the past week. Beijing reported four fatalities on May 17, taking the Chinese capital's death toll to 145.

WHO experts interpret the decrease in SARS case numbers as "encouraging", but cautioned against concluding that the city's SARS cases were on a downward trend. They warned that "misdiagnosis" of cases could have contributed to the lower numbers of probable cases in recent days.

"WHO officials fear that patients with milder symptoms of SARS are being excluded as probable cases," it said.

The number of wrongly diagnosed patients is not known, but WHO experts became concerned that this could be happening after recent visits to Beijing hospitals. "They fit the case definition but because they get better in a few days, they are not seen as probable cases," Dr Daniel Chin, leader of WHO's Beijing team of SARS experts, said.

PTI