JEDDAH: Four more people have died from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) infection in Saudi Arabia, bringing the death toll from the SARS-like respiratory virus in the Kingdom to 32, the Ministry of Health said on Monday.
Two of the fatalities were reported in Taif and the other two in the Eastern Province, where most cases have been registered, said the ministry in its website.
MERS stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, the name adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) following findings that most of the cases confirmed so far were either in the Middle East or have travelled to the Middle East.
The ministry also announced three more confirmed cases of MERS infections, one in the Eastern Province, one in Riyadh, and the third was of a two-year-old boy in Jeddah who was suffering from a “chronic” lung problem.
The other two cases are of a 63-year-old woman suffering from several chronic diseases and a 42-year-old man with chronic asthma, said the ministry.
The ministry said the total number of MERS infections in the kingdom now stood at 49, including the 32 fatalities.
A statement posted by the WHO on its website on June 15 said that since the virus was discovered by scientists in September 2012, the UN health agency has been informed of a total of 61 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS, including 34 deaths.
It said the reports were from Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and the United Kingdom.
WHO said the virus is from the same viral family that triggered the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that swept the world in late 2003 and killed 775 people.
