World Health Organization (WHO) experts have been holding more meetings with Chinese specialists, as they continue to try to find the cause of the lethal disease known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.
A team of WHO experts met Sunday with health officials in China's southern Guangdong province, where the SARS virus is reported to have been first detected.
China has been criticized for failing to quickly inform the public about the initial outbreak of the disease several months ago.
But official Chinese media quote the WHO team leader, Doctor Robert Breimen, as saying he was very much impressed by the capability of Chinese experts.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted Doctor Breimen as saying Saturday that the data his team had received was much more than expected.
During Saturday's news conference, Doctor Breiman, said the group is most interested in what he called "the phenomenon of super spreaders", people who spread the disease to a lot of other people. He said once the team figures out why these people are so infectious, that will help prevent the disease from spreading even further.
The epidemic has spread around the globe through air travel. At least 86 people have died worldwide from SARS, and another 2,500 have become sick.
Hong Kong reported three more deaths and 39 new cases of the illness Saturday, bringing its death toll to 20 and the number infected there to 800.
On Friday, China issued a public apology for the way it handled early information about the epidemic. The head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, Li Leming, admitted there was poor communication between China's medical departments and mass media in providing timely information about the disease.
