A Cuban government crackdown on corruption has spread to Havana's premier hospital and generated two tough calls by the Communist Party for intensified vigilance against ``anti-social'' activities.

Employees at the Hermanos Almejeiras Hospital in central Havana reported that at least three top officials there were fired or forced to resign recently because of allegations of mishandling hard-currency income.

The hospital is run by the Cuban Communist Party, not the Health Ministry. Its services are limited to members of the Cuban elite and foreigners who are sympathetic to Havana or can pay in hard currency.

The government, meanwhile, confirmed that it had replaced Dr. Manuel Limonta, head of Cuba's sophisticated biotechnology industry for more than a decade, but denied that the move was related to corruption.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez told reporters last week that Limonta had returned to his first love, research, and had been replaced by Luis Herrera, his deputy at the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center in Havana.

Center employees have told foreign diplomats in Havana that uniformed troops searched Limonta's office and carried off his computer just before his job change was announced, hinting at a less than friendly departure.

Aviation officials defect

A Canadian investor said three Cuban Civil Aviation Ministry officials who took a $200,000 bribe from a Canadian firm involved in an airport construction project had defected early this year in Ottawa.

``The [bribe] money had been paid in Canada, so they defected to enjoy the fruits of their corruption,'' said a Canadian businessman who claimed to have personal knowledge but no direct involvement in the bribe deal.

Havana has recently fired, detained or forced to resign a significant number of officials who engaged in corruption or failed to report it, mostly in the island's $1.8 billion-a-year tourism industry

Although the pilfering of state resources had long been widespread in Cuba, the economic crisis in the early 1990s, and the arrival of foreign investors and tourists, began an era of significant corruption within the government.

Officials have called foreign media reports on the crackdown ``exaggerated,'' and Vice President Carlos Lage said Thursday that any dismissals were part of the government's ongoing fight against corruption.

But two recent warnings from the Communist Party made it clear that the government of President Fidel Castro now regards corruption as an increasingly worrisome problem.

A note from the party's ruling Central Committee warned heads of tourism enterprises that handle hard currency that the party was concerned with ``incidents of corruption registered in strategic areas.''

Sex tour accusations

The note, obtained by a foreigner living in Havana, urged the enterprise chiefs to watch out for ``anti-social'' activities and the ``diversion of resources'' -- euphemisms for the theft of government materials.

The note mentioned the case of Cuba Amor, a Mexican travel agency alleged to have specialized in tours that included prostitutes and wild parties at a downscale Havana hotel. Company officials in Mexico have flatly denied any role in arranging sex tours.

The Communist Party issued a second call to fight corruption two weeks ago when its Granma newspaper devoted an entire page to an article describing the party's fight against corruption and wrongdoing among its 780,000 members.

About 1,500 members were investigated or sanctioned for corruption last year, Granma reported, in what foreigners in Havana viewed as a thinly veiled notice of a major housecleaning.

``This makes it clear that there is, and there will be, no impunity for those who violate the law, abuse their public functions and stop exhibiting the qualities of a [party] member,'' the Granma report noted.

The report noted that the party had received a growing number of complaints in recent years about theft of public resources, lack of administrative controls, abuse of power and behavior unfit for party members.