2 new MERS deaths bring Saudi toll to 107

Saudi health authorities announced Wednesday two new deaths fromthe MERS coronavirus in the kingdom, where 16 more infections were also detected.A 41-year-old man in the northwestern city of Tabuk and an 88-year-old in Riyadhdied of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, bringing to 107 the total deaths since thedisease appeared in the kingdom in September 2012, the health ministry said.At the same time, the ministry said 16 new infections nationwide have raised thetotal number of cases diagnosed to 361, representing the bulk of infections registered globally.Public concern over the spread of MERS mounted earlier this month after theresignation of at least four doctors at Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital who refused totreat patients for fear of infection.Acting health minister Adel Fakieh said Tuesday that measures to contain thespread of MERS "will be announced in the coming days" as Western experts andrepresentatives of the World Health Organisation met in Riyadh this week.MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus thaterupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a severe respiratory diseasewith a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that experts are still struggling tounderstand.