The Philippine Department of Health confirmed Friday two deaths from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the Philippines and two other people were infected with the virus.

"We have four cases of SARS, three imported and one locally transmitted," Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said in a press statement.

Dayrit said that Adela Catalon, who died at a hospital in Manila on April 14 and is believed to have contracted SARS in Toronto, Canada, and her farther, who died several days later, had been infected with SARS.

He added that a German man who traveled frequently to the Philippines from China's Hong Kong and a Filipino domestic helper who returned from Hong Kong on April 10 were also infected.

Government officials had earlier reported the case of the German man but said he recovered without infecting anyone else. The domestic helper is under quarantine at home after her local hospital refused to admit her, Dayrit said.

Dayrit also said Catalon's father was the first local transmission of SARS in the Philippines.

Autopsy findings released late Thursday showed that the elder Catalon had cancer. "However, the lungs showed bronchopneumonia which could have been the immediate cause of his death," Dayrit said.

Catalon and her father previously were cited as having died of probable SARS and the Philippine government placed under quarantine Catalon's hometown and nearby villages in the northern province of Pangasinan.

The government stepped up health checks at all entry points and called for a combination of vigilance, cooperation and calm by the public to try to keep SARS from its shores.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2003)