BEIJING -- China reported no new SARS cases on Monday for the first time in at least six weeks, a clear sign the flu-like disease is on the retreat in Asia, Reuters said.

But the World Health Organization, pointing to a renewed outbreak of the disease in Canada, warned the world's worst-hit region that the virus was proving hard to eliminate.

"This is not the time to drop our guard," Bob Dietz, the spokesman for the UN health agency in Beijing, said.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed more than 750 people worldwide and infected more than 8,300 since it first appeared in southern China's Guangdong Province late last year.

China's Health Ministry said on Monday there had been no new infections in a 24-hour period for the first time since April, when the government came clean after a cover-up that grossly understated the extent of the outbreak.

Taiwan, fighting the world's worst outbreak outside mainland China and Hong Kong, logged its fourth straight day of single-digit growth in new cases on Monday with just four.

Hong Kong reported four more cases, the 19th straight day the number of new infections there had been five or less.

But the death toll in Canada's biggest city, Toronto, rose to 31 on Sunday when a 60-year-old woman died and authorities said they were investigating five other deaths for SARS links.

"We take a look at Canada where all of a sudden this thing just pops up seemingly out of nowhere with a really developed healthcare system and we realize that it's not an easy thing to get rid of," Dietz said.

More than 5,000 people have been quarantined in Canada, most of them in Toronto, since a new cluster of cases surfaced in May, after the WHO took the city off its list of SARS-affected places. Encouraging Fighting

The WHO said it was encouraged by the fall in new cases in China. "The figures look pretty good. Hard to believe sometimes, but we are taking them on good faith," Dietz said. "What we want to do is deal with it in such a way that it's no longer a threat, which is more than just kind of controlling it or containing it."

The SARS virus has delivered a major shock to Asian domestic demand, keeping consumers out of shops and restaurants and tourists out of the region.

The impact of the virus and the threat of terror attacks were key issues at a meeting of trade ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Thailand.

But across Asia hopes are growing the worst may be over.

Two new deaths were reported in China on Monday, but neither was in Beijing, giving the embattled city its first day without any new cases or deaths since the government vowed to come clean with the figures on April 20.

By 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Monday, 334 people had died and 5,328 had been infected in China, but the number of new cases reported has fallen sharply in the past three weeks from more than 100 a day.

A relieved Singapore celebrated its removal from the WHO list of SARS-affected areas at midnight on Friday after the flu-like virus killed 31 people and infected 206.

New infections in Taiwan have declined steadily from a record daily rise of 65 cases on May 22, as a raft of outbreaks at hospitals appeared to be contained.

Taiwan's death toll from SARS remains at 81. SARS has killed 282 people in Hong Kong.