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A patient is being kept in quarantine at the Royal Liverpool hospital to be tested for the deadly MERS virus.

The illness – which kills 40% of sufferers – led to the closure of Manchester Royal Infirmary’s A&E in July while two people were tested for it.

The ECHO understands the female patient was rushed to the Royal last night by paramedics wearing protective suits and masked helmets.

MERS, which stands for Middle East respiratory syndrome, can cause pneumonia and kidney failure. It was first discovered in 2012 and has killed at least 449 sufferers since then, mainly in Saudi Arabia.

Dr Peter Williams, medical director of the Royal, said: “A patient is being tested for a severe respiratory infection in line with national guidelines.

“The sample will be screened for a variety of infectious diseases, one of which is MERS. Purely as a precautionary measure, the patient will be kept in isolation until test results are available.

“Our staff are highly trained and used to treating patients with potentially infectious diseases. There is no risk to patients and they can continue to attend the hospital as normal.”

MERS cases have been confirmed in 25 countries, according to the World Health Organisation, but the UK is not one of them, although patients here have previously been screened for it as a precaution.

It is unclear how MERS spreads and the illness is from the same family of viruses as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which infected around 8,000 people in China and south-east Asia during an outbreak that began in 2003.

The patient was brought to the Royal from outside Liverpool as the hospital is the infectious diseases hub for Merseyside and Cheshire.