RIYADH: The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus has claimed the lives of two more people, in Hofuf and Afif, the Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.

The deceased are an 81-year-old man from Hofuf in the Al-Ahsa region, and a 50-year-old woman from Afif, about 400 km from Riyadh on Makkah Road. There have now been 546 deaths from MERS in the Kingdom, out of 1,276 cases since June 2012. Seven people are now being treated.

As a precautionary measure, the ministry has placed all hospitals on alert for potential infections, and to deal with cases in line with guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO has urged health workers to apply standard precautions consistently with all patients, regardless of their diagnosis. Members of the public should also not have contact with camels.

Meanwhile, three women inmates at a rehabilitation center in Jazan have been infected with swine flu by an employee who had brought the virus into the center unknowingly, said Mohammad Azzi Mo’afa, the director general of the Social Affairs Ministry in Jazan.

He said that the infected women were moved to a hospital and given the vaccine for the virus. Medical staffers at the center were doing everything they can to ensure that the virus does not spread to others, he said.