Chinese doctor accuses Beijing of Sars cover-up

A prominent Chinese surgeon today accused the government of concealing the full extent of a deadly disease outbreak, saying Beijing has several more deaths and five times as many cases of infection as publicly reported.

Even as state media repeated the government’s insistence that the outbreak is under control, the Health Ministry said officials from throughout China had been summoned to the capital for a meeting about anti-SARS efforts.

The claim of unreported deaths came from Dr Jiang Yanyong, retired chief of surgery for a Beijing military hospital. He said two other military-run institutions have suffered at least seven fatalities. He said there were 106 cases of the disease.

Chinese authorities have reported four deaths and 19 cases in Beijing.

Jiang said his information came from hospital doctors and nurses. He quoted health workers as saying public comments by China’s health minister about the outbreak were “nonsense.”

He said he has not been contacted by authorities about his claims.

“No trouble for now, but I don’t know what will happen later,” said Jiang, 72, who continues to see patients at the No. 301 hospital after retiring as its chief surgeon.

The communist government has faced criticism abroad and from ordinary Chinese about its slowness in releasing information about the illness. Even after recent pledges of openness by senior officials, the Health Ministry and other offices decline to release details about deaths and cases of infection.

SARS has killed more than 100 people worldwide and sickened over 2,300.

China has reported 53 deaths – all but 10 of them in the southern province of Guangdong, where officials say the world’s first known SARS case occurred in November.

The World Health Organisation and several governments have issued warnings against travelling to Guangdong. A team of WHO investigators visited the province over the weekend in hopes of tracing the source of the disease, but said they hadn’t found anything conclusive.

However, Dr Meirion Evans, a Welsh epidemiologist and a member of the multinational WHO team, said information collected by provincial officials would be invaluable to learning more about the disease.

“We believe this is a real mine of information, a treasure trove,” Evans said in Beijing.

Information about the disease has been tightly controlled by Communist Party propaganda personnel, and officials including Health Minister Zhang Wenkang have played down the danger.

“Southern cities remain safe despite SARS outbreak,” said a front-page headline in the China Daily newspaper today.