JERUSALEM: A 58-year-old Israeli widow has conceived in vitro with a purchased egg and her husband's frozen sperm. Simi Harmon, who tried for decades to become pregnant before her husband of 37 years died in 1995, finally succeeded five months ago.

''I knew that if I had to I would try to get pregnant until I was 60,'' Mrs Harmon told an Israeli newspaper.

She will become one of the oldest women to give birth in Israel. In 1994, a 60-year-old European woman delivered a girl at an Israeli hospital.