Health officials are warning against complacency over Sars

"The figures look pretty good. Hard to believe sometimes, but we are taking them on good faith," World Health Organization Beijing spokesman Bob Dietz said.

But the WHO cautioned against "complacency", saying the disease would take a long time to eradicate.

"We take a look at Canada where all of a sudden this thing just pops up seemingly out of nowhere with a really developed healthcare system and we realise that it's not an easy thing to get rid of," Mr Dietz said, speaking after earlier figures on Sunday saw no new deaths in China for the first time.

SARS WORLDWIDE Known death tolls: World: 812 Mainland China: 348 Hong Kong: 298 Taiwan: 84 Singapore: 32 Canada: 38 Source: WHO/local authorities Global update

"This is not the time to drop our guard."

More than 5,300 people have been infected in China - where the disease first emerged last year - and the country has seen 332 deaths from the pneumonia-like illness.

Hong Kong reported four new Sars infections and one death on Monday, taking its total death toll to 282.

The death toll in Canada's biggest city, Toronto, rose to 31 on Sunday when a 60-year-old woman died. Authorities said they were investigating five other deaths that may be linked to Sars.

'Chain them to bed'

More than 5,000 people have been quarantined in Canada, most of them in Toronto, since a new cluster of cases surfaced in mid May, after the WHO had taken the city off its list of Sars-affected places.

Canada has altered the way it defines suspect cases

As the city struggles to contain the latest outbreak, Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement warned people that they might have to be "chained to a bed" if they violated the strict Sars quarantine rules.

He was referring to reports that some people in quarantine were not sticking to the required 10-day isolation period.

The BBC's Lee Carter in Toronto says there have been persistent reports of people refusing to remain in quarantine.

The most blatant example is the case of students from a suburban high school shut down because of one case of probable Sars, who were seen out shopping or even visiting other schools, our correspondent says.

Economic effects

Meanwhile, the severe impact of Sars on Asian economies was set to be one of the key themes of a meeting of Asia Pacific trade ministers in Thailand on Monday.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters at the conference that the economic activities affected by Sars would be back to normal "by the end of August".

And the prime minister told Apec representatives that he was optimistic the worst effects of the Sars outbreak had passed.

World leaders at the G8 summit in Evian, France, were also expected to discuss Sars.