In this Dec. 25, 2010 file photo, a festival official touches the lip of a young expensive Majahim, dark-skinned camel during the final day of Mazayin Dhafra Camel Festival. Scientists say the mysterious MERS virus has been infecting camels in Saudi Arabia for at least two decades and that previous human cases have probably been missed. Since the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus was first identified in 2012, doctors have struggled to explain how most patients have fallen sick. MERS can cause symptoms including fever, breathing problems and kidney failure. AP
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia says a man has died from a new respiratory virus related to severe acute respiratory syndrome, bringing to 63 the deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
The Health Ministry said Friday the latest victim, a 19-year-old, died in the city of al-Kharj, southeast of Riyadh. Two of his sisters are in hospital on suspicion they have been infected with the virus. If they prove to be positive, it would further raise the number of people infected.
So far, 150 people have been infected in the kingdom since September 2012.
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.