Fifth Mers death recorded in Jordan
|
Version 0 of 1. A man has died in Jordan after being infected with the Mers virus, the government has said on the eve of a World Health Organisation emergency meeting on the disease. The latest death brings to five the number of fatalities in Jordan from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome 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. On Sunday Saudi Arabia reported three new deaths from Mers, taking its death toll from the disease to 142. Mers has now infected 483 people in the Gulf kingdom since 2012, accounting for the vast majority of the 496 cases registered worldwide. Mers is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the Sars virus that erupted in Asia in 2003, infecting 8,273 people and killing nearly 800. 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 causes rapid kidney failure. Other cases have been recorded in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Lebanon and the United States. Most cases outside Saudi Arabia involve people who had travelled to the kingdom or worked there, often as medical staff. The WHO is to hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the spread of Mers. "The increase in the number of cases in different countries raises a number of questions," the WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said on Friday. |