SINGAPORE: Two more people died of SARS in Singapore, raising the death toll here to 17, the health ministry said yesterday.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said a 67-year-old woman, who was a family member of a probable SARS case, died on Thursday.
The second fatality was also a 67-year-old woman, who succumbed on April 15. She was classified as a SARS case and included in the death toll after laboratory findings showed she died of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Two other deaths were still being investigated for any links to the atypical pneumonia, the MOH said.
The first fatality was the wife of a 72-year-old man, a worker at Singapore's biggest fresh vegetable wholesale market whose infection prompted authorities to shutdown the facility over the weekend and quarantined more than 2,400 people who risked being exposed.
The 72-year-old man was himself upgraded on Thursday from a suspected to a probable case, the MOH said.
Five new suspects linked to the market were admitted to the SARS-designated hospital on Thursday. Of 14 suspect cases related to the market admitted to hospital earlier, four have been discharged and one was confirmed to be a SARS case.
Singapore now has a total of 192 confirmed SARS cases, with 53 still in hospital, including 17 in serious condition, while 120 have recovered. A total of 118 are considered suspected cases. With the new death toll, Singapore now has the third highest SARS fatality toll in the world - a distant third from China's 110 and 109 for Hong Kong.
Toronto, the Canadian city which is the hardest hit by SARS outside of Asia, has 16 deaths so far.