Chinese leader predicts 'victory' over SARS as death rate drops

The Associated PressBEIJING -- China's president said he is confident the country will "gain victory" over SARS as the government on Sunday announced its lowest daily increase in the number of deaths from the illness -- two.

China also has created a "rapid reaction system" to help control outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome, President Hu Jintao said, according to a Russian news agency.

Meanwhile, six people in northern China were sentenced to prison for inciting riots and blocking government efforts to force compliance with disease-control restrictions, state media reported.

The two new deaths raised mainland China's death toll to 284 people, where at least 5,233 have been sickened by the SARS virus.

Worldwide, the pneumonia-like illness has killed at least 634 people and infected more than 7,850.

Taiwan, where SARS has killed 40 people and sickened 344, reported its biggest jump in new infections Sunday for the second day in a row.

Singapore, where the economy has suffered from the SARS outbreak, reported its first new case in 20 days, shortly before the World Health Organization was expected to declare the country's outbreak under control.

"Many Singaporeans must be disappointed," Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said.

Beijing, which has more SARS cases than anywhere in the world, reported 17 new cases and two deaths. The numbers reflected a continuing downward trend since the beginning of May, when more than 150 cases were reported daily.

Noting the drop, Hu told the Russian news agency Interfax that China has achieved some success in its battle against SARS.

"We are full of confidence and resoluteness that we will gain victory over atypical pneumonia," he was quoted as saying, calling SARS "a disease which may be prevented, which may be controlled, which may be cured."

But, Hu added, there is "still one more stage of persistent efforts and struggle" before the epidemic is fully under control.

To reach that level, China is "improving the appropriate legal base, has created a rapid reaction system, is improving systems of warning and control," said Hu, who is scheduled to visit Russia at the end of May.

Additionally, he said, a special fund has been created to provide free treatment for the sick in China's poor, vast countryside, home to most of the nation's 1.3 billion people.

In Hebei province, the six demonstrators were given prison sentences ranging from one year to five years for disrupting social order and hampering SARS prevention work during an April 25 protest, the China Youth Daily said.

The group instigated a riot involving several hundred villagers in Guzhuangtou after a hotel in town was designated as a SARS observation station, the newspaper said.

One man beat drums and chanted slogans to incite the crowd while marching to the hotel, while two others quarreled with a police officer and burned corn stalks in the hotel compound, the Beijing Morning Post said.

Three other people assaulted hotel staff and damaged police vehicles, both newspapers said.

Reached by telephone Sunday, a woman from the county propaganda office said 10 people had been quarantined in the hotel at the time of the riot because they had contact with SARS patients.

The hotel is no longer an observation site because the 10 people were released from quarantine when they did not develop SARS symptoms, said the woman, who would only give her family name, Tian.

Over the weekend, WHO warned against nonessential travel to Hebei because of the spread of SARS. The province surrounds Beijing and has reported more than 200 cases of infection and 10 deaths. Health experts said the large migrant worker population in the province was a source of concern for the possible spread of the illness.

A growing number of violent protests have been reported in recent weeks as villagers afraid that SARS will reach their homes have damaged or destroyed buildings designated as quarantine areas.

Last week, China's Supreme Court said people who knowingly spreading SARS could face execution. The court said quarantine violators could be sentenced to seven years in prison.

Also Sunday, the Communist Party People's Daily newspaper reported that a quarantine order on the People's Hospital of Peking University has been lifted after 22 days.

The Beijing hospital was shut down on April 23 to control the spread of SARS.

A total of 1,429 patients, doctors, nurses and hospital staff were isolated, the People's Daily said. The hospital will reopen soon after a thorough disinfection, the newspaper said.