HEALTH

Saudi Arabia reports another fatality from new, SARS-like virus

The Associated Press Published Friday, March 7, 2014 6:37AM EST

This undated file image released by the British Health Protection Agency shows an electron microscope image of a coronavirus, part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and SARS. (AP / Health Protection Agency)

Text:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia --Saudi Arabia says a man has died from the MERS coronavirus, bringing to 62 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the centre of the outbreak.

The Health Ministry says the latest victim died in a Riyadh hospital on Thursday. The ministry also reported that a chronically ill Saudi man who was admitted to a hospital in Riyadh became a new positive case of the respiratory virus, bringing to 150 the number of people infected in the kingdom since September 2012.

The new virus is related to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003. It belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold.