Saudi Arabia says a 73-year-old man has died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing to 57 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the centre of the outbreak.

The Health Ministry said that the man died in a Riyadh hospital on Thursday.

He was among five newly detected cases, bringing the number to 141 of people who have been infected with the virus since September last year. Three of the new cases are of people who work in the kingdom's health services, it said.

The new virus is related to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003. It belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold.