The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday that the National IHR Focal Point of Iran has informed it of an additional laboratory-confirmed case of human infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
The patient is a 67-year-old woman from Kerman Province, who had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and was admitted to a hospital on June 6 due to a COPD exacerbation.
The patient was discharged on June 14 and continued treatment at home. She was in a stable condition until she developed severe acute respiratory symptoms and was readmitted to hospital. The patient was laboratory-confirmed with MERS-CoV on July 5 and died on the same day.
WHO said it has now been informed of a total of 837 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV globally, including 291 deaths.
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that can cause a range of ailments from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which became an epidemic in 2003. The virus could be transmitted between people in close and prolonged contact. The sources of infection for the new coronavirus are still unclear.
The deadly Novel Coronavirus (NCoV) strain, recently renamed MERS-CoV, reflects the fact that most of the reported cases are from that region, mainly Saudi Arabia.
Nevertheless, France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and the United Kingdom have also reported laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV infections. Those patients were either transferred there for care of the disease or returned from the Middle East and subsequently became ill.
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December 19, 2025 15:10 ET U.S. inflation data and interest rate decisions by major central banks were the highlights of this busy week for economics news flow. Employment data and survey results on the housing markets also gained attention in the U.S. In Europe, the European Central Bank and Bank of England announced their policy decisions and macroeconomic projections.