AMMAN: A man has died in Jordan after being infected with the MERS virus, the kingdom’s first fatality from the respiratory disease in more than a year, news reports said Saturday.

Another man was reported to have died of the H1N1 virus, or swine flu.

“Two men in their eighties have died in Jordan, one from the coronavirus MERS and the other from H1N1,” the daily Al-Rai cited health ministry official Bassam Hajawi as saying. It quoted him as saying the ministry had “raised precautionary and alert levels across the kingdom.”

Saudi Arabia is by far the worst affected country from MERS — Middle East Respiratory Syndrome — accounting for 59 deaths out of 180 confirmed cases.

It has also struck in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The death in Jordan was the country’s third, after two previous fatalities in 2012.

Experts are struggling to understand MERS, for which there is no vaccine.

Hajawi was quoted on Saturday as saying it was not known how the Jordanian man became infected.

“It is possible he contracted the virus while abroad, two months before the symptoms appeared,” he said, adding that the patient also had leukemia.