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TORONTO - Two more people have died of SARS in Canada, raising the country's death toll from the respiratory illness to 38, Ontario's public health commissioner said Sunday.
The victims were an 81-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man who had been ill for a long time, commissioner Colin D'Cunha said.
The government released no further details and said its next update on the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome would be today. Canada had 28 active probable SARS cases Friday compared with 64 on June 10.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong reported no new SARS cases Sunday, paving the way for the World Health Organization to remove the once-hard-hit territory from its list of SARS-infected areas.
Sunday was the 20th day since the last confirmed SARS patient in Hong Kong was hospitalized, and WHO was expected to remove the territory from its list as soon as today, health officials said.
Taiwan - which once had the third-worst outbreak of the pneumonialike disease after Hong Kong and China - was hoping to meet the same goal: Today, the island marked its sixth straight day without a new reported infection.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome is a flulike, sometimes fatal lung infection. In general, SARS begins with a fever greater than 100.4 degrees. Other symptoms may include headache, discomfort and body aches. After two to seven days, SARS patients may develop a dry cough and have trouble breathing.
In the Toronto area, 38 people have died since early March of complications from SARS. The disease has been confined to Ontario province, but an American who visited Toronto came down with the illness when he returned home to North Carolina.
That man survived, D'Cunha said Sunday.
Canada's largest city has experienced two SARS outbreaks since March, prompting WHO in April to warn against nonessential travel there. It later lifted that advisory.
Thousands of people were placed under 10-day quarantine across the greater Toronto area during the largest SARS outbreak outside of Asia.
The SARS outbreaks also have harmed Toronto's tourism industry, with visits to Canada falling nearly 6 percent from March, Statistics Canada reported.
The SARS outbreak also appeared to be receding in China, the world's worst-hit nation. The number of patients currently with SARS fell below 100 on Sunday for the first time in months - down to 97 from 123 the previous day, the Health Ministry said. No new SARS fatalities or infections were reported - the 11th day without new cases in Beijing, which accounts for more than half of China's death toll of 347.