HONG KONG, March 24: The outbreak of a mystery respiratory illness killed four people in Hong Kong and Vietnam on Monday, bringing the global death toll to 17 and creating new concerns about efforts to contain the virus.

Hong Kong’s Health Secretary Yeoh Eng-kiong told a press briefing that two more people had succumbed to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) bringing the total number of deaths from the virus in the former British colony to 10.

Yeoh said another 18 people had been diagnosed with SARS, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the territory to 260, with 38 people in intensive care.

The French embassy in the Vietnamese capital said a local nurse and doctor working at the French Hospital there died Monday after falling ill with SARS, bringing the death toll in Hanoi since the epidemic began this month to four.

The nurse had been in a critical condition for several days after being in direct contact with a 48-year-old American who fell ill with SARS during a business trip to Hanoi and who died in a Hong Kong hospital on March 13.

Canadian health officials announced a third SARS-related death on Saturday, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) reporting the epidemic has now spread to at least 13 countries. News of the latest deaths came one day after University of Hong Kong scientists said they had cultured the virus that causes SARS.

The team isolated the virus from the lung tissue of a patient who developed the illness after contact with a doctor from China’s Guangdong province and who later died.—AFP/dpa