The World Health Organization has confirmed a 33rd death from the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) coronavirus along with three new cases in Saudi Arabia.
The new cases make 58 laboratory-confirmed cases of the infection. The latest death was a 21-year-old man who had been admitted into intensive care earlier this week. The death is unusual in that most cases involve older people; the other two cases in Saudi Arabia are a 63-year old woman in stable condition and a 75-year-old man in intensive care.
The death came as researchers announced progress in their attempts to understand the disease. A full genetic map of MERS has been created by British scientists.
“[This is] a positive step to follow-up the development and mutation of the virus over time,” the researchers said in a statement, “meanwhile, helping in the diagnostic steps , and to find out a quick mechanism of diagnosis.”
The CDC said the discovery and release of the DNA sequences “helps us understand the virologic evidence of person-to-person transmission.”
However, the news was not all good. Dr. Mark Denison, a coronavirus researcher at Vanderbilt University, said the virus could be adapting to grow better and transmit faster in humans.
