The SARS virus has killed another 13 people and infected 194 in China, and the World Health Organisation has said the country may face big outbreaks in its provinces.
The latest figures brought the SARS death toll in China to 92 and the total number of cases to 2,001, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting the Health Ministry's first daily report of SARS cases since it promised them on Sunday.
Health experts are particularly worried about China, where officials admit to the poor standards of its health care system in the countryside where 70 percent of its 1.3 billion people live.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in a speech made last week and published on Monday, said the health system was so inadequate an epidemic could spread "before we know it" and "the consequences could be too dreadful to contemplate".
In Beijing, fear mixed with anger after the government raised its estimate for the number of SARS cases. China's health minister and Beijing's mayor were sacked on Sunday for negligence.
SARS is spread by coughing and sneezing, but the WHO is not ruling out the possibility it may also be transmitted when people touch objects such as elevator buttons, or that it could be passed on in fecal matter.
SARS started in China's Guangdong province, but cases have now appeared in various parts of the country, including the northern region of Inner Mongolia, the eastern province of Zhejiang and Guangdong and Guangxi in the south.
In Canada, the only country outside Asia where people have died of SARS, authorities said a "belligerent" health worker who ignored a request to quarantine himself could have put hundreds of people at risk when he attended a weekend funeral.