RIYADH, 16 January — The death toll in Saudi Arabia from the Rift Valley Fever virus, which surfaced in the Arabian peninsula last September, has risen to 119, the Health Ministry reported yesterday.
In a statement carried by the SPA news agency, the ministry said "119 people died of RVF up to Sunday and 857 people in all have contracted the disease, of whom 730 have left hospital after treatment."
In neighboring Yemen the fever has claimed the lives of 109 people, according to the last Health Ministry bulletin at the end of October.
Health ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting in Kuwait on Wednesday praised Saudi efforts to control the fever and urged the five other member states to take all precautions.
The symptoms of Rift Valley Fever include hemorrhagic fever, encephalitis and eye problems, although human deaths are supposed to be rare, according to experts.
The virus is usually contracted from mosquitoes, or by contact with the blood, bodily fluids or organs of infected animals.
