No Iranian has yet been diagnosed with the Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) or coronavirus, a senior health official announced on Sunday. Speaking to FNA on Sunday, Deputy Head of the Iranian Health Ministry’s Communicable Diseases Center Mahmoud Nabavi pointed to the return of Iranian pilgrims from Iraq, and said, “No case of Coronavirus which affects the respiratory system has been reported in Iran or Iraq so far.” He also pointed to the return of Iranian Hajj pilgrims from Saudi Arabia, and said, “Coronavirus cases have been observed in some of our regional countries, specially in the Eastern parts of Saudi Arabia, but tight and precise controlling of the Iranian Hajj pilgrims who have returned from Saudi Arabia has shown no case of this disease.” Nabavi noted that Coronavirus infection started in a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, two years ago and 140 people infected with the virus have so far been diagnosed in such countries, half of them have lost their lives as a result of the disease. Like SARS, MERS appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering from a temperature, coughing and breathing difficulties. But it differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure, and the extremely high death rate has caused serious concern. In August, researchers pointed to Arabian camels as possible hosts of the virus. And the Saudi government said on November 11 that a camel in the kingdom had tested positive for MERS, the first case of an animal infected with the coronavirus.