Filipino nurse among latest MERS fatalities — report

JEDDAH: A Filipino nurse working at a government hospital in Riyadh has died of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, a Manila newspaper reported on Thursday.
The fatality was a 45-year-old woman from the central Philippine province of Negros Occidental who worked at the emergency room unit of the King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh, said a Philippine Daily Inquirer report, quoting the victim’s husband.
The names of the nurse and her husband were withheld upon the husband’s request, said the Inquirer.
According to the report, the husband, who works at a government agency, said he was informed of his wife’s demise by the hospital director.
In its latest MERS bulletin posted Wednesday night, the Saudi Ministry of Health listed a 45-year-old woman in Riyadh as among the four latest MERS fatalities, which brought the death toll in the kingdom to 121.
It is not clear how many Filipinos have died of MERS. Last month, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs announced that that one Filipino worker died on April 10 of the disease in the United Arab Emirates.
Several other Filipino health workers working in the Kingdom had earlier been reported to have been confirmed to have caught the infection and have undergone treatment.
Filipinos account for a big percentage of foreign workers in the Kingdom’s hospitals.