MERS infection kills five more in Saudi Arabia
Iran Press TV
Sat Apr 26, 2014 1:9PM GMT
Five more patients in Saudi Arabia have died from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), raising the death toll in the kingdom to 92, Saudi Health Ministry says.
The ministry said in a statement on Saturday that two Palestinians and a Bangladeshi woman were among the dead. The other two were Saudis.
The statement added that the deaths were among 14 new cases, which were discovered in the cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca.
The ministry said a total of 313 MERS cases have been detected in the kingdom since the outbreak of the virus in September 2012.
On Friday, two MERS-related deaths were announced.
On Thursday, Saudi National Guard Minister Prince Mitab said his father, King Abdullah, paid a visit to the city of Jeddah in order to reassure the public that the exaggerated and false rumors about coronavirus are not true.
'The MERS situation is reassuring and it has not reached the level of an epidemic,' he added
MERS is a cousin of SARS. The virus, which causes coughing, fever and pneumonia, does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.
In addition to Saudi Arabia, MERS has been reported in Qatar, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain.
On April 17, the World Health Organization said it had been informed of 243 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection across the world, including 93 deaths.
SAB/AB/SS
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