Taiwan reported a record daily rise in the number of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) infections and deaths on Tuesday.

Taiwan's Department of Health said the number of probable SARS cases rose by 39 to 383 and a dozen more had died, bringing the toll to 52.

The World Health Organisation says the virus is spreading in Taiwan faster than in any other part of the world. In a statement on its Web site, the UN health agency said lapses in infection control, particularly in emergency rooms, could be a reason for the rapid spread in Taiwan.

More than 90 per cent of Taiwan's cases are the result of hospital infections, following outbreaks in at least six major hospitals in the past four weeks.

On Tuesday, the Kaohsiung Medical University became the latest hospital to quarantine medical staff.

The Taiwanese figures contrast with a steady decline in cases in China and Hong Kong, the areas worst hit by the flu-like virus, which has killed about 650 people around the world.

The WHO has expressed fears the disease, which began six months ago in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, could be impossible to contain if it takes root in China's vast rural areas.

But China's Deputy Health Minister Ma Xiaowei was cautiously optimistic about its containment.

"From mid-April to May, it peaked in Beijing… Cases have mainly occurred in urban areas, with few in rural areas and no cluster cases in the countryside," he told a meeting of WHO delegates in Geneva.

China reported five more deaths from SARS and 17 new infections on Tuesday. Four of the deaths and seven of the new cases were in Beijing, which a week ago was reporting almost 50 cases a day and two weeks ago was logging between 100 and 150.

Ma warned that the situation remained grave and that China was stepping up efforts to ensure the disease did not reach areas so far unaffected.

In China, a total of 294 people have died from the virus. The country's 5,248 cases represent some 65 per cent of the total cases worldwide.

SARS is high on the agenda of the 192 member states of the WHO gathered in Geneva for their annual assembly, with officials stressing that it is still not too late to eradicate the virus.

"I do not believe that it has to become endemic," Hank Bekedan, WHO representative in Beijing, said.