Beijing doctor alleges SARS cases cover-up in China.

Beijing's mayor Meng Xuenong reportedly said this week that the first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was detected in the capital 6weeks ago. This admission refutes official claims that the deadly virus was found there only recently.

According to the China Daily newspaper, Meng said the first SARS patient was treated in a Beijing hospital on March 1 but had now recovered.

Meng's remark appears to confirm claims by a doctor from one of the city's hospitals that Beijing authorities knew about the SARS outbreak earlier than officially acknowledged.

Jiang Yanyong of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital, known as Hospital 301, claimed that at one Beijing hospital alone, more than 60SARS patients had been admitted and at least seven had died.

Jiang made the claims in a signed statement provided to Time magazine. The statement said that two People's Liberation Army hospitals were now treating SARS patients—hospitals 309 and 302—and Hospital 309 is “already full to capacity”. The Ministry of Health, in a statement released on April 15, said that Beijing had just 37SARS patients.

Jiang said that he went public with his claims because he feared that “a failure to disclose accurate statistics about the illness will only lead to more deaths”.

He said he “could not believe” statements made by China's Health Minister Zhang Wenkang that Beijing had only 12 SARS cases and that three patients had died. “As a doctor who cares about people's lives and health, I have a responsibility to aid international and local efforts to prevent the spread of SARS”, he said.