Riyadh, May 13: Five people died and eight were infected with the MERS coronavirus on Monday, bringing the death toll to 147 since September 2012.
The new cases included five women, according to the Health Ministry. Four patients, all women, were diagnosed in Riyadh, while two were reported in Jeddah and two in Madinah. Patients in Riyadh were aged 31, 60, 74 and 80, one of whom died at a private hospital and two of whom are in ICU, while the fourth is said to be stable.
In another development, a man has died in Jordan after being infected with the MERS virus, the government said Monday, on the eve of an important WHO emergency meeting.
The latest death brings to five the number of fatalities in Jordan from the coronavirus since it first emerged in 2012. The man, in his 50s, worked in a private hospital and died on Sunday, the Health Ministry said.
Meanwhile, British and US health authorities said on Monday they had found a second case of the virus in a person who flew from Jeddah to the US transiting through London on May 1.
The passenger, who is the second known MERS infected patient to have flown to the US, was on Saudi Airlines Flight 113 from Jeddah to London, and transferred at Heathrow for onward travel, Public Health England (PHE) said in statement.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the patient is a health care worker employed at a Saudi facility which was taking care of MERS patients.
A CDC official said the patient traveled from Saudi Arabia to London to Boston to Atlanta to Orlando.
“Risk of transmission is considered extremely low but as a precautionary measure, PHE is working with the airline to be able to contact UK passengers who were sitting in the vicinity of the affected passenger,” the PHE statement added.
Earlier this month a first US case was diagnosed in a man who traveled from Saudi Arabia to Indiana. That man was a health-care worker at a hospital in Riyadh, who flew to the United States on April 24. After landing in Chicago, the man took a bus to Munster, Indiana, where he became sick and went to a hospital on April 28.
The man, an American, improved and was released from the hospital late last week. Tests of people who were around the man have all proved negative, health officials have said.
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