AMMAN, Jordan, May 1 (UPI) -- Two new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which since 2012 has killed 107 people in Saudi Arabia, have been reported in Jordan.
The Jordanian state news agency Petra said an unidentified Saudi man, 25, and his Jordanian medic, 28, are infected, bringing the number of MERS cases in Jordan to seven.
The medic “got infected while he was treating the Saudi patient. He (the medic) is in stable condition,” said Health Ministry official Mohammed Abdallat.
The MERS coronavirus causes acute respiratory illness. Its symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath, and thus far the majority of its victims do not survive, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said. It is regarded as a deadlier but less-easily transmitted form of the SARS virus, which began in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, 744 of whom died.
Saudi health authorities reported Wednesday the number of those diagnosed within the country with MERS had risen to 361.
