JEDDAH — After a break of several months, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has returned to Jeddah with the Health Ministry announcing two confirmed cases on Tuesday. According to the ministry, the cases were a 66-year-old Saudi man who was still in a critical state and a 57-year-old Saudi woman, whose condition was described as "stable". The ministry said a total of 32 confirmed cases of the infection were reported in various parts of the Kingdom during the past seven days. The virus was first discovered in the Kingdom in September 2012. Since then as many as 1,342 people have contracted it. Of them, 790 patients have recovered, 594 died and 15 are still under treatment. Meanwhile, the head of the ministry's department to fight infections, Dr. Hail Bin Mattar Al-Abdali, said all coronavirus cases reported in a university hospital in Riyadh were hospital staff working in one section of the facility. He said none of them showed any symptoms but were discovered after they beware examined because they mixed with a case. A 49-year-old woman from Buraidah was admitted to the hospital on June 10 in a critical condition. On June 12, she tested positive for MERS. The woman had initially gone to hospital because of a condition unrelated to MERS. She was was managed in a multi-bed room, where healthcare workers and patients who came in contact with her were exposed to the virus.
