The Chinese leadership took dramatic action to end the cover-up of the SARS epidemic by revealing 14 new deaths and hundreds of cases, sacking two senior officials and cancelling May Day holidays.

The move followed international criticism of China's handling of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). It also came as Hong Kong announced seven new deaths from the disease, which has now killed nearly 200 worldwide.

In a statement Sunday the Chinese health ministry said there were 346 confirmed cases and 402 suspected cases in Beijing alone, and that 18 people had died from SARS in the capital.

The number of cases in Beijing is nine times higher than the previous offical figure of 44 cases and four deaths. The nationwide death toll from SARS has been raised to 79 with 1,814 confirmed cases of the illness.

Shortly after the statement state media reported that Health Minister Zhang Wenkang and Beijing mayor Meng Xuenong were removed from senior positions in the Communist Party, a formal step which will almost certainly see them fired from their government posts.

And in an attempt to prevent the further spread of the disease, the authorities cancelled the week-long May Day holidays when hundreds of millions of people journey across the vast country to visit relatives.

There is no cure, vaccine or diagnostic test for the illness, and China's cooperation was seen as vital to containing and ultimately controlling the epidemic, which has devastated business and travel in Asia.

Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang -- standing in for Zhang who failed to show up-- told a press conference that a team had been sent to every hospital in Beijing to find out the real number of SARS cases.

However the new transparency only refers to Beijing, and the authorities gave no indication whether investigations were going on in other areas of China where SARS cases have been dribbling in day by day.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) welcomed China's new attitude Sunday, but expressed concern that many poor and rural areas with only basic medical facilities were not facing the same scrutiny.

"We are very pleased," Jeff McFarland, a member of the WHO team of experts probing the disease in the Chinese capital, told AFP.

"But of course it is a concern for everyone, everywhere that the WHO has not visited the rural areas."

Around 4,000 confirmed or suspected cases of SARS have now been recorded in around 30 countries, but the vast majority are in mainland China and the former British colony of Hong Kong, which is battling an alarming rise in deaths.

The Hong Kong government announced seven more deaths Sunday and 22 new cases. A total of 88 deaths and 1,380 cases have now been recorded in the territory.

Hong Kong has recorded 56 deaths in the past nine days, and the sudden spike in the number of fatalities in Hong Kong has raised the mortality rate from the illness in the territory from 4.5 percent to 6.0 percent, causing concern among doctors treating the illness.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said of particular concern was the growing numbers of younger and fitter people dying from the illness. Four of the deaths Sunday -- aged 35, 39, 41 and 47 -- had no prior history of illness.

"It's very worrisome," said Thompson on local radio. "So we have to find out what caused these deaths."

Governments continued Sunday their efforts to halt the disease's spread. In Singapore, where 14 people have died of the disease, a wholesale market was shut down temporarily after a man working there was diagnosed with the virus.

The 45-year-old was among five additional reported cases, raising the total number of people affected in the city-state to 177.

In Hong Kong government officials joined the second day of a massive clean-up campaign to disinfect parks, commercial buildings, housing estates and polluted streets.

SARS has spread like wildfire in some of Hong Kong's densely populated housing estates, with more than 300 cases in one housing block blamed on a faulty sewage system.

The new deaths have pushed the global toll from SARS to at least 199. In addition to China, Hong Kong and Singapore, deaths have been recorded in Canada (14), Vietnam (5), Thailand (2) and Malaysia (1).

Malaysia Sunday also announced a second possible SARS death, that of a 30-year-old man. Officials said tests would confirmed how he died in several days.