In the last 24 hours, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health has reported ten new cases of MERS in the capital city of Riyadh, and one death from the virus. Those numbers follow reports of nine new cases yesterday, along with two deaths. According to Helen Branswell, one of WIRED's favorite infectious disease reporters, the state hasn't seen that many new infections in a day since the height of the MERS outbreak last year.
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This is especially concerning as travelers begin to arrive for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Islam's holy sites that falls between September 20 and 25 this year. Over the course of the pilgrimage, Saudia Arabia hosts more than 2 million people, who sleep in hot shared tents and travel barefoot toward their destinations. Those conditions make it extraordinarily easy for a virus like MERS to spread—especially devastating because MERS kills about 50 percent of the people it infects. The country has not yet posted its health regulations for 2015 hajj travelers.
