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Health

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Fri Jun 14, 2013, 08:12 AM Jun 2013

WHO says MERS virus death toll hits 33

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/14/who-says-mers-virus-death-toll-hits-33/

The global death toll from the SARS-like virus MERS has risen to 33, after two new fatalities in Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

Spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the Saudi health ministry had informed the UN agency of three new laboratory-confirmed cases, one of them fatal, and the death of a patient already diagnosed with the disease.

“Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 58 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 33 deaths,” Chaib told reporters.

Until last month, the disease was known simply as novel coronavirus, before being renamed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, as cases initiated in that region.