RIYADH, Nov. 20 -- Saudi Arabia has set up a specialized medical laboratory in Madinah to boost its fight against the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Arab News reported on Thursday.

"The laboratory is able to deliver results in record time, examining and identifying samples within six hours, down from 24 hours because earlier the samples had to be sent to the Jeddah Regional Laboratory for testing," the news portal quoted Mohammed Qutb, director of Laboratory and Diagnostics Platform at the Command and Control Center in the Ministry of Health, as saying.

Jeddah is about 330 km southwest of Madinah.

Equipped with the latest technology, the laboratory provides fast and accurate results and allows for comprehensive examination of MERS-CoV and other respiratory viruses, in addition to processing samples from patients suspected of hepatitis or HIV infection, the report said. The new lab is part of the efforts to fight the epidemic that has killed 345 individuals in Saudi Arabia since 2012. The total number of confirmed MERS cases in the country stands at 807, the highest in the world.