The Saudi Arabia Health Ministry is reporting three additional cases of laboratory-confirmed Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to a World Health Organization (WHO) update June 14.

According to the update, the first patient is a 63-year-old woman with underlying medical conditions from the Eastern region, the second patient is a 75-year-old man with underlying medical conditions from Al-Ahsa governorate and the third patient is a 21-year-old man from Hafar Al-Batin governorate who died.

Additionally, a previously laboratory-confirmed case has died.

Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 58 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 33 deaths.

Last week, the Saudi Arabia Health Ministry and the WHO met in Riyadh to assess the situation due to a new coronavirus in the Kingdom, where of the 58 total cases and 33 fatalities reported, Saudi Arabia accounts for 43 and 27, respectively.

With a fatality rate exceeding 60 percent in the Kingdom, health officials say about 75% of the cases in KSA have been in men and most have occurred in people with one or more major chronic conditions.

The joint mission says at present there appears to be three epidemiological patterns with the MERS-CoV:

In the first pattern, sporadic cases occur in communities. At present, we do not know the source or how these people became infected.

In the second pattern, clusters of infections occur in families. In most of these clusters, there appears to be person-to-person transmission, but it seems that this transmission is limited to people who are in close contact with a sick family member.

The third pattern comprises clusters of infections in health care facilities. Such events have been reported in France, Jordan and KSA. In these clusters, the sequence seems to be that an infected person is admitted to hospital where that person then transmits the virus to other people in the health care facility.