The World Health Organisation says some confused Chinese doctors are under-reporting SARS infections, as Taiwan announces a record one-day rise in cases of the deadly virus.
Singapore may be just a day away from being declared SARS-free on Saturday and the WHO expressed confidence that Hong Kong too had the virus under control, but 34 new infections in Taiwan took the global tally to at least 7,770, with 610 deaths.
The WHO said it was still too early to say if China -- the worst hit country with 275 deaths and more than 5,000 cases - was past its peak of SARS cases, because doctors were not fully reporting cases due to misunderstandings about the symptoms.
The WHO criticised China in April for dramatically under-reporting cases of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and the world's most populous country responded by sacking its health minister and the mayor of Beijing for negligence.
After visits by WHO officials to Beijing hospitals, the United Nations agency said it was concerned that some cases were being excluded because patients had no known contact with a SARS victim or because they had mild symptoms that soon cleared up.
"They fit the case definition but because they get better in a few days they are not seen as probable cases," Daniel Chin, the head of WHO's Beijing team of SARS experts, said in a statement.
The patients were being sent home or moved out of isolation wards to general wards, where they could infect others, he said.
"Clinicians are making this decision because there's an assumption that SARS patients must be very sick. But there's a spectrum of severity for SARS," Chin said.
Taiwan, the third worst affected area after mainland China and Hong Kong, said on Saturday the number of cases there had jumped by 34 to 308 - putting more pressure on an island that has already been hit hard by the disease.
"If the spread of SARS lasts for several more months, I don't know if we can stand it," said Wu Ah-chung, a French restaurant chef. With patrons too scared to dine out, he said, sales had fallen by a third
Taiwan's health minister quit on Friday to take responsibility for the spread of the virus through the island's hospitals. A large Taipei department store closed its doors on Saturday for four days of cleaning, after a staff member was hospitalised as a suspected SARS case.
"We don't have to shut down according to law, but we decided to adopt the strictest standards to protect consumers," a spokesman at Dayeh Takashimaya store told reporters. He estimated the four-day shutdown would cost $2 million in lost revenue.
Singapore, where SARS has killed 28 people, is set to be taken off the World Health Organisation's list of SARS-affected regions by Sunday if no new infections are reported.
The city-state has been counting down to Sunday but got a fright this week when there was a suspected outbreak at a mental hospital. The government said this had turned out to be a case of common flu rather than SARS.
The WHO says 20 days of no new cases - or two incubation periods - are needed before declaring SARS under control. Canada came off the list on Thursday and Vietnam last month. New infections are dropping in Hong Kong, but the WHO said it could be several weeks before the city got to the point of declaring no new cases.
Hong Kong reported just three new cases on Friday, the lowest one-day tally since the epidemic hit the city. It was the 13th day in a row in which new infections were in single digits.
"We think that the outbreak has come under control in Hong Kong and that soon there will be no new cases," David Heymann, the WHO's head of communicable diseases, said.
Face masks were a common sight in Taipei streets on Saturday. Passengers on the city's mass rail network were required to wear them, as were restaurant workers, who faced fines if caught without one.
Some people even wore masks when going to have their hair cut. "How can I cut your hair if you wear a mask," a hairdresser asked Chu Ching-yun, a teacher in his late 40s.
"We'd better be careful as the spread of SARS is unlikely to come under control in the near term," said Chu.
Chu, who eventually removed his mask, said he usually went least twice a week to get his hair washed and cut, but had been unwilling to do so for over a month for fear of catching SARS.
Such reluctance to go shopping has hit Asian economies hard. Airlines have been worst affected, with most ground staff and air crew at Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific agreeing to take four weeks of unpaid leave as the airline grounds planes in the face of a two-thirds fall in passenger traffic.