Two more people have died from the dreaded SARS-like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the oil-rich nation Saudi Arabia, according to the country's health ministry on Wednesday. The latest deaths now bring to 36 so far the casualties from the fatal disease in the kingdom.

The health ministry likewise said three others infected with the same virus have been treated. Two came from the eastern province and one in Riyadh.

First recognised worldwide in September 2012, MERS-CoV, a new virus that is related to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), has claimed 42 lives. SARS triggered global pandemonium in Asia in 2003 after it jumped from animals to humans, killing 800 people in the process.

Most of the MERS-CoV deaths came from Saudi Arabia. However, it was in June 2012 that Saudi Arabia recorded its first MERS-CoV death.

The latest two deaths were of a 75-year-old man in the eastern region of Al Ahsaa and a 63-year-old woman in Riyadh. The ministry did not disclose the exact dates of their deaths.

The MERS-CoV began its outbreak in Al Ahsaa in a health-care facility in April 2013.

Although most of the MERS-CoV seem to concentrate in Saudi Arabia, the virus has been found to have spread to neighbouring Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as overseas in France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain.

The overseas spread, however, still originated from a person who got inflicted of the disease because he/she had come from or had traveled to the Middle East.