The number of infected due to the new SARS-like novel coronavirus in Saudi Arabia have jumped to 13 cases, of which seven have already died.

First reported to the attention of the World Health Organization last Wednesday, health authorities said five of those who had earlier died have not travelled abroad, arousing suspicions and theories the infections could have originated right within the country's health-care facilities.

"After questioning relatives, it turned out that none of these people had been abroad before being infected," Dr Ziad Mimish, who heads the health ministry's disease prevention unit, told AFP.

First identified September 2012 in the Middle East, the global count for the new SARS-like novel coronavirus is now 30 cases. Of those, 18 people have died. Its first fatality was a Saudi man who died in June 2012 due to a mysterious and severe pneumonia. However, the first known cases of the new infection occurred as early as April 2012, in a cluster of 11 illnesses in a hospital in Jordan.

A member of the same virus family as SARS, the new coronavirus has the ability to spread from person-to-person. This was confirmed when on Friday, Saudi authorities said one of those who got infected was a family member of one of the original seven who had died.

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Five Dead, Two Others Infected With New SARS-Like Virus in Saudi Arabia