Two people were admitted for closer monitoring in connection with viral haemorrhagic fever at the Morningside Medi-Clinic, the hospital said on on Saturday.

One man was admitted on Thursday evening and the second person, a nursing sister, was admitted on Friday, said Morningside Medi-Clinic spokesperson Melinda Pelser.

"We are monitoring their temperatures. There was a discrepancy in their temperatures and that is why we admitted them," said Pelser.

However, she could not give more information about their condition because of patient confidentiality.

On September 12, a 36-year-old woman, Cecilia van Deventer, was airlifted from Zambia to the Morningside Medi Clinic in Sandton. She was treated for tick bite fever and other potential infections, but died two days later.

A Zambian paramedic who accompanied her into the country died last week at the clinic, while a nurse died in the Sir Albert hospital in Randfontein on Sunday.

Also on Sunday a contract cleaner working at Morningside Medi-clinic Maria Mokubung (37) died in Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital.

Mokubung's death was not related to viral haemorrhagic fever, national health department chief director of communicable diseases, Dr Frew Benson, confirmed on Tuesday.

On Friday morning the eleven year-old son of the nursing sister who died and his 23- year-old nanny were discharged from hospital.

A cleaning supervisor at Morningside Medi-Clinic who had been admitted to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital on Monday with symptoms of viral haemorrhagic fever has since been discharged.

All three would continue to be monitored, said Pelser.

Pelser said anyone who showed a change in temperature was brought into the hospital for increased temperature monitoring over a 72-hour period.

"If there are discrepancies in the temperature monitoring done at home they are brought to the hospital for closer monitoring to see whether the temperature changes were abnormal."

Morningside Medi-Clinic was currently monitoring 67 people who were contacts of those who died at the hospital. Their temperatures were taken for signs of change every six hours. However, this was being done from their homes.

Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital were monitoring their own list of contacts of the nurse who died in that hospital.

Gauteng health spokesperson Zanele Mngadi said on Saturday she was receiving continual hourly updates from the outbreak response team.

The World Health Organisation said up to 144 people who had contact with the three people killed by the illness were being traced.

"121 known contacts of the fatal cases are being traced in South Africa and 23 in Zambia," the organisation said on Friday.

Epidemologists are still searching for the cause of the haemorrhagic fever.

Pelser emphasised that only people who were in direct contact with the bodily fluids of a person who had a confirmed case of the virus could be infected.

Sapa