Saudi announces 5 new MERS deaths

Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday five new deaths fromMERS, raising the death toll in the country worst-hit by the mysterious coronavirusto 152 since it appeared in 2012.The health ministry also reported four new infections with Middle East RespiratorySyndrome raising the total so far to 495.The new deaths occurred on Monday, four of them in Red Sea commercial hubJeddah and one in the capital Riyadh.Acting health minister Adel Fakieh visited Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital where aspike in infections last month sparked public panic. Fakieh, who last week sacked the hospital's director, said it would remain one of anumber of facilities across the country dedicated to the treatment of MERS.He told reporters they would all receive new medical equipment to allow them "tooffer the highest level of care for patients infected."MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus thatappeared in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died. Like SARS, it appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing,breathing difficulties and a temperature. But MERS differs in that it also causesrapid kidney failure.The vast majority of cases have been in Saudi Arabia, but MERS has also been foundin 16 other countries, nearly all among people who had recently travelled to theGulf.  A growing body of research has identified camels as the source of the virus and theSaudi agriculture ministry on Sunday urged camel handlers to wear masks andgloves."The illness spreads in two ways -- from infected camels or within the hospital itselfwhere there is a lack of measures to prevent the spread of the disease, whether inthe dialysis or the emergency departments," Fakieh said on Tuesday.A World Health Organisation team pinpointed breaches in its "recommendedinfection prevention and control measures" as being partly responsible for the spikein infections after a five-day inspection visit earlier this month.