Nearly half the surgery patient deaths were from heart disease.
(By the Second World War, less than one per cent of American soldier deaths were from disease).
The early deaths were from brain infections, but in 2004 it also took on a respiratory form transmitted from person to person.
Nearly all the deaths were from one busload of prison service cadets who were on their way on Thursday to evacuate a prison imperiled by the flames.
Most of the deaths were from smoke inhalation and asphyxiation.Some survivors were flown to neighbouring cities, including the state capital, Porto Alegre, for treatment.
A majority of those fatal accidents, 52 percent, resulted from front crashes, but 28 percent — about 7,000 deaths — were from side impacts.
Lyn Finelli, the disease centers' chief flu epidemiologist, said most of the deaths were from pneumonia and were among the elderly.
"With the way they were jammed in here, most of the deaths were from contagious diseases," Guy R. MacLean, a neighborhood leader, said, strolling around the old prison island, now a yacht club.
The researchers insist that the deaths were from causes unrelated to the procedure, but the disastrous outcome inevitably raises questions as to whether this procedure can safely be tried in humans without far more animal research and other preparatory work.
The pair are thought to have been killed by insurgents, though the BBC said an Afghan source claimed the deaths were from a "green on blue" attack - where coalition troops are killed by their Afghan allies.
The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and though many of these deaths were from disease, veterans testified at Congressional hearings about rampant brutality by American soldiers.
