MANILA: The Philippine government says three Filipino health workers in Saudi Arabia have contracted Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said today two of the women are nurses and the third is a medical technician. They work in separate hospitals and are in the early stage of the infection after being exposed to MERS patients.
He says an emergency room nurse is isolated in staff housing and the others in their respective hospitals.
MERS belongs to the family of coronaviruses which includes the common cold and SARS. It can cause fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure.
Jose says 10 Filipinos have died of MERS since 2013, eight of them in Saudi Arabia. The illness has been centred in the kingdom since its discovery in 2012.--AFP