Four people have died from the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia, bringing the death toll from the SARS-like virus in the kingdom to 32, the health ministry said on its website Monday. Two people died in the western city of Taif and the other two were pronounced dead in Eastern Province, where most cases have been registered, said the statement. The ministry announced three more confirmed cases of people in Saudi Arabia infected with the virus, which the World Health Organisation has dubbed the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Three more people have died in Saudi Arabia from the new SARS-like coronavirus, bringing the worldwide death toll to 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Saudi health officials also told the WHO of a new case in the eastern province of al-Ahsa, increasing the number of cases worldwide to 50, WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas told reporters at a news conference in Geneva. The latest deaths were also in al-Ahsa, Thomas said.

The new coronavirus, which first emerged in June 2012 and has been named by the World Health Organisation the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV), has infected in less than a year 44 people around the world, of whom 24 have died. The virus is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and eventually killing some 800 people. A timeline:

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that it would help Saudi Arabia dig deeper into deadly outbreaks of a new SARS-like virus to draw up advice ahead of the annual haj pilgrimage, which attracts millions of Muslims. The U.N. agency, which is not currently recommending any restrictions on travel to the kingdom or screening of passengers at airports or entry points, will sent a second team of experts in the coming weeks, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said.