In this undated 2013 file photo shows students at the Princess Nora University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) denied news reports on Friday that the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was found among students of the Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University in Riyadh.

Dispelling the reports written in some newspapers and websites, Health Ministry spokesman Faisal Al-Zahrani said that the staff and students of the university are safe from the virus.

However, he added that four of the female janitors who were working at the university have tested positive for the virus and are now among the 12 MERS cases currently being treated at the ministry’s hospitals.

The four infected women were contracted through a private company to work for the university as part of a group of 36 workers in total. The women’s accommodation is located in Thumamah, in the eastern part of Riyadh.

“We have quarantined the entire group of workers and four of them have been sent to hospital for immediate treatment, while the other 32 workers are being kept under observation in their own housing quarters.

The Deputy Minister for Public Health Affairs and the Head of the Control and Leadership Center, Abdulaziz bin Saeed, has disclosed that the group of 32 cleaning employees will be kept under observation for a total of 14 days.

He noted that the situation is under control and that the other women have now tested negative for the disease, but were kept separate from their colleagues as a precautionary measure.

Saeed said that symptoms can take up to two weeks to surface, which calls for the daily testing of all collected samples, a process that will continue throughout the entire incubation period of the virus.

Since June 2014, there have been 1,255 MERS cases throughout the Kingdom, resulting in 539 deaths, while 704 patients recovered and 12 are currently receiving treatment.

According to Al-Zahrani, the number of MERS cases has drastically decreased in recent weeks: “We hope that we can continue forward in this declining trend in the upcoming weeks,” he added.

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