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Saudi Arabia reports 1 more death from new virus

A colourized transmission of the MERS coronavirus that emerged in 2012 is shown. A long-awaited report on a large outbreak of MERS cases in Saudi Arabia reveals the virus spreads easily within hospitals, at one point passing in a person-to-person chain that spanned at least five generations of spread.
A colourized transmission of the MERS coronavirus that emerged in 2012 is shown. A long-awaited report on a large outbreak of MERS cases in Saudi Arabia reveals the virus spreads easily within hospitals, at one point passing in a person-to-person chain that spanned at least five generations of spread. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia says a 73-year-old man has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 57 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the centre of the outbreak.

The Health Ministry said that the man died in a Riyadh hospital on Thursday.

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He was among five newly detected cases, bringing the number to 141 of people who have been infected with the virus since September last year. Three of the new cases are of people who work in the kingdom’s health services, it said.

The new virus is related to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003. It belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold.

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