The World Health Organisation says it has “significantly increased” concern about the deadly virus that emerged in the Middle East but the disease is not a global health emergency.<br /><br />The virus, which causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, sparks coughing, fever and sometimes fatal pneumonia. It has been reported in more than 500 patients mainly in Saudi Arabia.<br /><br />It has spread to neighbouring countries, as well as in a few cases to Europe, Asia and the United States, killing about 30 percent of those who are infected.<br /><br />MERS is a coronavirus from the same family as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 800 people worldwide after first appearing in China in 2002.
