Five more die of SARS-like disease in Saudi Arabia

May 3 2013

"Saudi Arabia said five more people have died of a deadly new virus from the same family as SARS, and two other people were in intensive care," Reuters reports. "The seven cases were discovered in al-Ahsa governorate in the Eastern Province, the Saudi news agency SPA quoted the Saudi Health Ministry as saying in a statement late on Wednesday," the news service writes, adding, "The novel coronavirus (NCoV) is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that first emerged in Asia in 2003" (5/2). "Sixteen people have now died from 23 cases detected in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and Britain. Riyadh has accounted for most of the deaths, with 11 people, including the five new fatalities," Al Jazeera notes (5/2).