More SARS deaths in Hong Kong
 |
Hong Kong medical workers hold white flowers as they pay tribute to a hospital nurse who died from SARS.
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
Fear seems to be spreading faster than SARS in Beijing, China. CNN's Jaime FlorCruz reports. (May 7)
|
HEALTH LIBRARY
|
|
|
|
|
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Eleven more people in Hong Kong have died from severe acute respiratory syndrome and eight more people have been infected, Hong Kong health officials said Wednesday.
None of the newly infected people are health-care workers, said Dr. Liu Shao-Haei, senior manager of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority.
The new infections increase Hong Kong's total of SARS cases to 1,654, said Liu, who wore a cloth mask over his face at a news conference.
The number of SARS deaths in Hong Kong stands at 204.
All but one of the latest patients to die had an underlying chronic condition or sought treatment at a late stage of infection, Liu said. The victims ranged in age from 42 to 86, he said.
A new study of 1,400 SARS patients in Hong Kong by London's Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine found that the mortality rate is much higher than originally thought and that older people are much likely to die from SARS.
The study found as much as 50 percent of the people older than 60 died from the disease. For people under 60, the mortality rate was between 7 percent and 13 percent, said epidemiologist Dr. Azra Ghani.
In April, the World Health Organization said the mortality rate from SARS cases was 4 percent.
WHO officials, who met Tuesday with Hong Kong health officials, said the number of new cases in the former British colony has steadily declined, suggesting that the outbreak has peaked since starting in March.
As of Tuesday, health officials in 29 countries reported 6,727 probable SARS cases and 478 deaths, according to WHO.
