MERS war stepped up in Saudi Arabia as 5 lives lost in 1 day

February 21, 2015

Riyadh, Feb 21: Deaths from the MERS virus have surged in the Kingdom, the Health Ministry figures showed on Friday.

The ministry recorded five MERS deaths on Thursday alone, bringing to 16 the number since Feb. 11.

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus also infected two more people, the ministry said.

The five victims were four Saudis from Alkhobar, Riyadh and Buraidah, while the fifth patient was an expatriate from Buraidah. The two people infected are from the capital and Alkhobar.

Since June 2012, MERS has claimed 382 lives out of 899 infections. There are currently 29 people being treated at various health facilities in the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general for health security at the World Health Organization, said at a press conference here Thursday that there should be further discussions on developing a vaccine for camels, because they are passing the virus on to humans. They are also the likely animal source of MERS.

However, this issue was not the sole preserve of the WHO but should take place with companies in the private sector and global regulatory bodies in other sectors, said Fukuda in response to questions from Arab News.

“Our role is to point out what kind of information is needed to have the best possible public health response. This is our main focus for research on developing vaccines,” he said.

“If the virus is in the animal population it is very hard to think of eradication, because we are not going to kill all camels.”

He said that the idea would be to protect people by preventing the virus moving from camels to humans.

“We came here as one team and not separate teams, because we know that the issues are linked together and we should address them as being linked,” Fukuda said.

The WHO official commended the Kingdom’s efforts to fight the virus. “We are seeing a big improvement in the way the Kingdom is handling MERS-CoV, compared with the past, whether in terms of research, prevention measures, curing of cases, and decreasing infections in health care settings.”

Meanwhile, the ministry has organized a major awareness campaign at 2,000 schools. Students will be asked to write a 200-word essay on the virus, its symptoms, precautionary measures, and the medical treatment offered by the state. The ministry also plans to organize lectures, exhibitions and seminars on MERS at schools. Students would be told about the importance of personal hygiene.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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