Deadly Middle-East Coronavirus Has a New Name: MERS

Coronaviruses, the family of viruses to which SARS belongs, are a group of viruses that have a crown-like (corona) appearance when viewed under an electron microscope. (Image credit: CDC/ Dr. Fred Murphy)

A new virus that surfaced in Saudi Arabia last year, and has so far killed 20 people and infecting 20 more, finally has an official name: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to news reports.

The Coronavirus Study Group, an international team of scientists, announced its decision to name the virus in a paper published in the Journal of Virology on Thursday (May 15).

Other possible names for the new virus that the scientists considered were Novel coronavirus 2012, or London1_novel CoV 2012, or Saudi SARS.

To avoid confusion in communication, the Coronavirus Study Group recommended that the virus be called MERS-CoV.

"This name is endorsed by the discoverers of the virus and other researchers that pioneered MERS-CoV studies, by the World Health Organization and by the Saudi Ministry of Health," the group wrote.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

Bahar Gholipour is a staff reporter for Live Science covering neuroscience, odd medical cases and all things health. She holds a Master of Science degree in neuroscience from the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, and has done graduate-level work in science journalism at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has worked as a research assistant at the Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives at ENS.