Twenty SARS patients were discharged from hospitals in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of recovered SARS patients in Beijing to 2,277.

It was another "victory" in Beijing's fight against SARS, said Liang Wannian, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health.

Liang said Beijing had submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO) the application to lift its travel advisory on Beijing, the only area left on the WHO's SARS warning list.

Liang expected the WHO would remove its travel warning very soon as the city had lived up to its standard of reducing the hospitalized SARS patients below 60.

All the 46 hospitalized SARS patients have been treated for more than 20 days and most were not infectious, officials said, adding that half of them were detained for medical observation forother diseases like heart trouble and diabetes.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2003)