China has announced that another 147 people have contracted SARS and nine more people have died, nearly all of them in Beijing.
A Health Ministry spokesman told a news conference the latest figures take the national number of SARS infections to 2,305, and the death toll to 106.
Reeling from a huge jump in reported cases over the past few days, Beijing reported 105 of the new cases, and seven of the deaths, he said. The rest were from various provinces. There have now been 693 cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and 35 deaths in Beijing.