RIYADH: The death toll in Saudi Arabia from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has reached to 157 after five more persons including three women died in the capital Riyadh, the Saudi health ministry said.
The ministry said that 16 fresh cases of the disease have also been reported.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the spread of the disease has become more serious but does not yet constitute a global health emergency.
The MERS is a cousin of SARS. The virus first emerged in the Middle East, and was discovered in September 2012 in a Qatari man who had traveled to Saudi Arabia.
The virus, which causes coughing, fever and pneumonia, does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.
