LONDON/RIYADH: Health and infectious disease experts met at the World Health Organization on Tuesday to discuss whether the MERS coronavirus now constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern.”
It came amid reports that five more people died and four were infected with the deadly virus in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 152 since September 2012. The newly infected patients, all from Riyadh, include three women, aged 20, 34 and 54.
These women are being treated at local hospitals, while a 69-year-old man who was suffering from chronic heart disease died after suffering respiratory difficulties. One death was reported in Riyadh and four in Jeddah — three men, aged 29, 54 and 60, and one woman, aged 53.
Experts meeting at the UN health agency’s Geneva headquarters would consider whether the recent upsurge in detected cases in Saudi Arabia, together with the wider international spread of sporadic cases, means the disease should be classed as an international emergency.
The WHO’s assistant director general for health security, Keiji Fukuda, would announce on Wednesday the conclusions of the meeting.
Meanwhile, employees at two Florida hospitals who came into contact with a Saudi resident infected by the MERS are being monitored for symptoms and have been told to stay home for two weeks.
(With input from agencies)
