Saudi announces four new deaths from MERS virus

RIYADH: Four more people have died from the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia, bringing the death toll from the SARS-like virus in the kingdom to 32, the health ministry said Monday.

Two people died in the western city of Taif and the other two were pronounced dead in Eastern Province, where most cases have been registered, the ministry said on its website.

The ministry announced three more confirmed cases of people in Saudi Arabia infected with the virus, which the World Health Organisation has dubbed the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS.

One case of infection was in Eastern Province and another in the capital Riyadh, while the third was of a two-year-old boy in the western city of Jeddah who was suffering from a "chronic" lung problem.

The other two cases are of a 63-year-old woman suffering from several chronic diseases and a 42-year-old man with chronic asthma, it said.

The ministry said the total number of MERS infections in the kingdom now stood at 49, including the 32 fatalities. (AFP)