MERS virus claims another Saudi life

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has claimed one more life in Saudi Arabia, bringing the death toll from the virus across the globe to 48, with the Kingdom alone accounting for 42 deaths.
A Health Ministry official identified the victim as a 38-year-old Saudi citizen from Hafar Al-Batin.
One more person has contracted the virus locally, bringing the number of MERS cases in the Kingdom to 84.
He was suffering from severe pneumonia and respiratory failure at the time of admission to the hospital.
The other person, who was diagnosed as carrying the virus, is a 55-year-old resident of Madinah.
He is also suffering from chronic renal failure and is now undergoing treatment at the ICU in a hospital in Madinah.
Seven people have been reported infected with MERS in the past 12 days and three of them have succumbed to the virus.
One of the deaths reported earlier was that of a 51-year-old man suffering from cancer and chronic diseases in Riyadh when he was diagnosed with MERS.
The other victim was a 54-year-old citizen also suffering from chronic diseases.
Two other cases of the infection were reported in the southwestern region of Asir, including a 31-year-old man with chronic illnesses and a 55-year-old who came in contact with an infected person, the ministry said, adding that both were undergoing treatment.
Two cases were found in Riyadh on Wednesday.
The first was a 50-year-old Saudi woman afflicted with cancer and other chronic diseases.
The second case was that of a 70-year-old resident with several chronic diseases. Both are in ICU.
Medical specialists are struggling to understand MERS, for which there is no vaccine.
The virus has an extremely high fatality rate of more than 51 percent.
It is considered a cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.
MERS was traced recently to bats in the Kingdom by the Ministry of Health.
According to a Ministry official, scientists from the Kingdom and the US found DNA matching the MERS virus in a sample taken from a bat in Saudi Arabia.
The study was initially conducted by a team of researchers from the Kingdom, as well as from Columbia University, who detected MERS in a bat near the home of a man who died from the disease. The team found a small fragment of the virus’ genes in the animal that matched those seen in the patient.
The study, headed by the Ministry of Health, was conducted from October to April. It was initially conducted on 76 bats from areas where the virus cases were identified.
According to the WHO, 94 laboratory-confirmed and 16 probable cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been reported to the organization since April 2012. Affected countries in the Middle East include Jordan, Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.
In Europe, countries affected include France, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy, while Tunisia in North Africa has also been affected.
The infection, presumably acquired through exposure to non-human sources, has occurred in the Middle East, while limited transmission in Europe and North Africa has occurred following close contact with recent travelers from the Middle East. No new countries have reported MERS-CoV cases since the last update.