MERS Claims 2 more Lives
The Ministry of Health announced on Friday that the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) had claimed two more lives.
The people who died were two Saudi men aged 84 and 51, from Queiyah and Hofuf. They were non-medical personnel and had pre-existing illnesses.
There were no infections recorded in the 24 hours up until Friday noon.
The ministry had announced three deaths on Thursday, two in Makkah and one in Riyadh, with three people infected from Alkhobar, Al-Jouf and Riyadh.
Since June 2012, there have been 916 MERS cases, with 394 deaths. Five hundred patients have been cured, with 21 under treatment at hospitals, and one person isolated at home, according to the ministry’s website.
Meanwhile, King Saud University closed down its emergency section temporarily on Thursday as a precautionary measure on fears that an infected person may have turned up at its medical facility.
In a statement published in a local daily, Abdulrahman Al-Muammar, executive director of the KSU medical facility, said a 90-year-old Saudi woman, who had sought treatment for bleeding in her bowel, was suspected to have the virus.