Saudis say 4 people beat MERS, but another 4 died

From Robert Roos at CIDRAP :

" Saudi Arabia announced today that four women have recovered from previously unreported cases of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), while another four people have died of MERS infections that were announced earlier.

With this news, the Saudi Ministry of Health's (MOH's) MERS-CoV count rose to 53 cases. However, the death toll listed on the MOH's MERS overview page remained at 32 at this writing.

If the new cases and deaths are added to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) global MERS tally, it will increase to 68 cases and 42 deaths. The current WHO count is 64 cases and 38 deaths.

The Saudi announcement closely followed the start of a 3-day meeting in Cairo at which health officials from the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe aim to develop a MERS-CoV response plan.

Also today, the WHO issued a summary of MERS-CoV developments over the past 3 weeks. The agency predicted, "It is likely that more sporadic cases with subsequent limited transmission will occur in the near future," a forecast that today's Saudi announcement seemed to fulfill.

The Saudi statement said the four new cases involved a 42-year-old Saudi woman in the Eastern region and three female healthcare workers, ages 45, 39, and 29, in Taif governorate, which is near Mecca in the western part of the country. 

The 42-year-old has been released from a hospital, and the other three have all recovered, the MOH reported. A total of 14 patients in Saudi Arabia now have recovered from MERS, the agency said."