Saudi Arabia reports latest death from new Sars-like virus

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia says it has recorded another death from a new respiratory virus related to Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 16.

Saudi Arabia remains the centre for the virus as investigators from the World Health Organisation seek more clues about its origins and how it is spread. More than 20 people have died from the virus worldwide.

The Saudi Health Ministry announced the latest death on Monday but gave no other details.

Since September 2012, the WHO has been informed of 41 confirmed cases of the virus.

The virus has been compared to Sars, a respiratory infection that surfaced in China in late 2002 and killed at least 774 people worldwide.

Meanwhile, the Tunisian health ministry has reported that a 66-year-old man has died from the virus following a visit to Saudi Arabia, and two of his adult children were infected with it.

His sons were treated and have since recovered but the rest of the family remains under medical observation, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. The World Health Organisation confirmed the cases of the children, but said one of them was a daughter who was with her father for part of the trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There was no immediate way to reconcile the differing reports.

The cases are the first for Tunisia and indicate that the virus is slowly trickling out of Saudi Arabia, where more than 30 coronavirus cases have been reported. There have been at least 20 deaths worldwide out of 40 cases.

“These Tunisia cases haven’t changed our risk assessment, but they do show the virus is still spreading,” said Gregory Hartl, the spokesman for WHO in Geneva.

The Tunisian, a diabetic, had been complaining of breathing problems since his return from the trip and died in a hospital in the coastal Tunisian city of Monastir.