Daily lives have been turned upside down by fear of Sars

The largest outbreak of Sars outside of Asia killed three more people in the Toronto area, increasing the total number of Canadian deaths to 13, health officials said on Saturday.

Two people in China's remote northern region of Inner Mongolia have died from Sars, reinforcing fears about the spread of the disease.

Sars - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - has infected more than 3,000 people and killed 117 across the world since it first appeared in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in November.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the epidemic is being contained elsewhere in the world, but they are worried about China.

The WHO's head of global alert and response co-ordination, Mike Ryan, said surveillance systems in many provinces were not strong enough to pick up all of China's cases.

Earlier, the Chinese news agency reported that 10 cases were reported in the regional capital of Hohhot.

China said on Friday that 58 people had died in six provinces around the country and another 1,300 were ill.

Airline denies 'grounding plan'

In Canada, an 80-year-old woman died on Friday night, while an 86-year-old woman and a 73-year-old woman died on Saturday, John Letherby of the Ontario province Health Ministry said.

There have been 13 Sars-related deaths in Canada

"We're not out of the woods yet and today's events, unfortunately, prove that," he added.

Across Canada, 274 probable or suspect cases have been reported, up from 266, Health Canada said on Saturday.

The WHO has launched its first ever global alert because of the disease which has created panic in much of Asia, the worst-hit region.

But the organisation says there are signs that Sars may have peaked.

David Heyman, head of communicable diseases, said that even in Hong Kong, which has the highest incidence after mainland China, there were signs that local health authorities were beginning to win the battle.

This was despite the fact Hong Kong reported 61 fresh cases on Friday, more than double the previous day.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific airline denied local reports that it was considering a cost-cutting plan to ground all flights as the region's carriers feel the effects of plummeting passenger numbers.

"Cathay Pacific has considered a number of contingency measures to maintain its services, preserve cash and minimise expenditure," the company said in a statement.

"Some of these measures are already in place such as stopping all promotional and advertising activities. More measures will be implemented as and when necessary."

'Super spreader'

Singapore has warned its residents that Sars would not go away overnight, but said it was learning to live with the illness after reporting 39 new cases in a week.

As the government moved to calm nerves, an outbreak of the virus at Singapore's biggest hospital showed little sign of abating.

The government said on Friday that six more people were infected by Sars while either visiting or working at Singapore General Hospital, bringing the number of confirmed cases at the sprawling complex to 25 in a week.

Nine people have died of 140 confirmed cases in the city state. The rash of new infections have been traced to an elderly man whose multiple ailments masked symptoms of Sars as he unwittingly spread the disease in the hospital.

The elderly man, dubbed a "super spreader", may have infected as many as 52 people, the government said.

The Singapore Government said it had introduced tougher screenings of air travellers arriving from affected such as Hong Kong, Canada, Taiwan, Hanoi in Vietnam.

Nurses and air force paramedics at the main airport, armed with the power to quarantine, are now taking the temperature of all travellers from Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province.