S.Korea announces first two MERS deaths: Yonhap
South Korea's health ministry confirmed Tuesday that two people had died from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the country's first fatalities from the virus, Yonhap news agency reported. A 58-year-old woman, who had been treated as a suspected case of MERS, died of acute respiratory failure on Monday and tests later came back positive for the virus. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is considered a deadlier but less infectious cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed hundreds of people when it appeared in Asia in 2003.
