The World Health Organization (WHO) said today a vaccine against the SARS virus could take at least a year to develop.
WHO officials said another outbreak of the Severe AcuteRespiratory Syndrome cannot be ruled out, making the need todevelop better diagnostic tests and a vaccine even more urgent.
China this morning reported no new confirmed SARS cases or deaths in the past 24 hours and said the number of sufferers in hospital continued to fall.
SARS has infected 5,326 people in China and killed 347 of them since it first appeared in the southern province of Guangdong last November.
Authorities in Taiwan said earlier one person had died from SARS but that there were no new infections for the fourth day in a row.
The Department of Health said Taiwan's total probable cases of SARS dropped by two to 695.
The WHO removed Taiwan from its travel advisory list this week, but the island needs to post 20 consecutive days of no new infections before being removed from the list of SARS-affected areas.