As at 1pm today, seven new patients were confirmed to have SARS in public hospitals. Some 1,008 patients have recovered and been discharged from public hospitals. Of them, 24 were discharged today.

There are now 445 patients in hospital, of whom 91 are recovering patients who are in convalescence and preparing for discharge.

Most of the patients in hospital are responding positively to the treatment protocol. Sixty-six are in intensive care.

The new patients include two healthcare workers, one each from Prince of Wales and Tuen Mun Hospitals. The remaining five are other patients and contacts of patients with SARS.

Four patients died in Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Prince of Wales Hospitals. They were women aged 60 to 100 and all had a history of chronic disease. This brought to 208 the total number of SARS deaths.

As of today, there are 425 households under the home confinement programme, representing 1,081 people.

Director of Health Dr Margaret Chan said apart from the record low in fresh cases, the other good news is Amoy Gardens, Ngau Tau Kok Lower Estate, Tung Tau Estate and Tai Po have not shown any new cases.

Dr Chan said this is the first day Tai Po has registered zero cases. She urged all estates, buildings and districts which have had SARS cases to keep up the good work with household and environmental hygiene and disinfection to minimise the virus' spread.

"This is the fifth day we have recorded single digits in daily new cases. This is a very encourging trend but we must be careful as it is at this moment that we need to maintain our vigilance," Dr Chan said.

"Complacency giving rise to relaxation of control measures could create problems and all the hard work we put in place in the last two months could go to waste. I appeal to the community to maintain vigilance and be conscious that we need to continue our efforts as the disease can be unpredictable. I hope we will continue with this good trend."