5 new coronavirus cases found in eastern region

JEDDAH: Five new cases of the coronavirus infections have been recorded in the Eastern Region, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.
In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said the new patients were all senior citizens with ages ranging from 73 to 85 years. All were diagnosed with chronic diseases.
Meanwhile, France's first victim of the SARS-like virus which the 65-year-old man is thought to have contracted in Dubai, has died, health officials said yesterday, raising the death toll to 24 worldwide.
Another man, who shared a hospital room with him for three days, was later found to have the virus.
The new cases in the Kingdom brings to 35 the total number of confirmed infections in the Kingdom and the world total to at least 49 since the new respiratory virus was discovered by scientists in September 2012.
Of the world total coronavirus deaths, Saudi Arabia accounts for 18.
Now called by the MERS-CoV by the World Health Organization (WHO), short for Middle East Respiratory Virus - corona virus, the new virus is from the same family as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that emerged in Asia in 2003.
The latest MERS-CoV death victim was an 81-year-old woman in Al-Ahsa, who contracted the virus on April 28 and died on May 26, according to the MOH.
Of the 18 fatalities in the Kingdom, only one was a non-Saudi, a Syrian expatriate who succumbed to the infection at a hospital in Qassim province.