The lifting of the warning takes effect tomorrow, WHO said, adding that it still considered Toronto an "affected area."

WHO continues to advise against all nonessential travel to Hong Kong, the Chinese capital Beijing and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Shanxi.

China's premier today met Southeast Asian leaders at an emergency summit to win back international trust after weeks of accusations of a SARS cover-up and amid economic worries.

Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations that SARS is going to be a long-term problem for his country. The disease has sickened more than 5,300 people, mostly in Asia, and after Singapore reported a new death today the number killed rose to at least 355.

"There is a need for us to recognize the fact that the SARS epidemic is going to be a long-term, a complex and a relapsing epidemic," Wen said.

He added that China just needed time to control the illness and acknowledged that his government did not adequately address it initially.

"What we lacked was prevention and control experience. Our countermeasures were, by far, inadequate," Wen said. "We have already learned our lesson."

China today reported nine more deaths and 200 new infections, bringing its SARS death toll to 148. The World Health Organization says SARS probably has peaked in many places, but it fears the situation is worsening in China.

At the end of the summit, Asian leaders announced wide-ranging steps to control the spread of SARS. A joint declaration by China, Hong Kong and 10 southeast Asian countries said they would take "rigorous measures" concerning immigration and customs controls, including pre-departure and arrival screening of travelers and better flight management.

The countries agreed to set up a regional information network to help stop the spread of SARS and said their countries would cooperate on researching the disease.

Separately, hard-hit China and Taiwan both established funds to combat the disease. Mongolia reported its first cases, and New Zealand and South Korea said for the first time they had probable SARS cases.

WHO's decision to lift the Toronto travel warning came after WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland met in Geneva with a senior Canadian delegation, which stressed that no new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome were reported among the community at large for the past 20 days. That is double the length of the incubation period.

Tony Clement, health minister for Ontario province, where Toronto is located, earlier described his delegation as "anticipating and hopeful" following "a great exchange of information" at an hourlong meeting with Brundtland.

WHO yesterday said Canada appeared over the worst of the SARS outbreak that has claimed 21 lives out of more than 140 reported cases in the country.

Most of the cases have been in Toronto hospitals, and health authorities have used quarantine and close monitoring and tracking to try to contain the illness.

Canadian officials were outraged when WHO on Wednesday advised against nonurgent travel to Toronto, ranking it alongside Beijing and other hard-hit parts of China and Hong Kong. At the time, WHO said the travel advice would remain valid for at least three weeks ­ double the maximum incubation period for SARS.

The WHO warning caused an immediate drop in the number of tourists as conferences, concerts and other events were canceled.

A Toronto Dominion Bank report estimated the costs of the SARS outbreak to the Canadian economy could top $1.5 billion.

A small WHO team is expected to arrive in Toronto tomorrow to attend an international conference on SARS and see how the city is trying to contain the disease.

In China, nearly 10,000 people who might have been exposed to the virus have been put under home quarantine ­ including 7,600 in Beijing.

Millions of Chinese are avoiding shops and some are staying away from work, raising fears of massive economic consequences at home and abroad.

President Hu Jintao has ordered Communist Party officials to "move forward with economic work while going all out to combat the SARS epidemic," the official Xinhua news agency reported. Xinhua said the Ministry of Health issued an urgent order to health officials to inspect hospitals to check on disease reporting, quarantine measures, staff protection and disinfection.

The strain of the disease is affecting the world's most populous nation in other ways as well.

Chinese police confirmed that villagers near Beijing ransacked a building after they heard rumors it was to be made into a SARS ward.

The violence erupted Sunday in Chagugang, about 60 miles southeast of Beijing.

Construction crews had installed metal partitions and beds in the vacant junior high school, said a construction worker reached there by telephone. He would not give his name. An official of the Tianjin Public Health Bureau, which is responsible for the town, said it had no plans to put SARS patients in the school.

In other signs of tension, a newspaper reported that health workers in the capital were fatigued and demoralized and that some hospitals treating SARS patients were running low of drugs and even face masks.

Preliminary findings published today suggest SARS may be milder in young children than in teenagers and adults.

Scientists at the Chinese University in Hong Kong studied the first 10 children treated for SARS during the early part of the outbreak. They noticed that while teens had symptoms similar to those seen in adults ­ muscle aches, chill and shivers ­ younger children tended to have milder symptoms, such as coughs and runny noses, and recovered sooner.

Still, Dr. Klaus Stohr, WHO's chief SARS scientist, said the study published today on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal is too small to draw any meaningful conclusions because of its small sample ­ five teens and five children under 13.