RIYADH: An 81-year-old woman who had contracted a Sars-like coronavirus has died in Saudi Arabia, raising the death toll in the kingdom to 18, the health ministry said in a statement yesterday.
“An 81-year-old woman who was suffering from kidney failure as well as other chronic illnesses has died” in the eastern Al Ahsaa region after contracting the virus, it said.
Saudi Arabia counts by far the most cases, with 30 confirmed infections and 18 fatalities, while cases have also been detected in Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Britain and France. So far, there have been 44 lab-confirmed cases worldwide of the virus, which until now has been known as the novel coronavirus, or nCoV-EMC, but was this week redubbed the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS.
In Saudi Arabia most cases have been registered in the kingdom’s east, with the health ministry saying that most of those who died were “elderly people with chronic illnesses”. AFP
