A Saudi man has been cured after he was diagnosed with a mystery illness from the same family as the deadly Sars virus and from which one person died, the kingdom’s health ministry said on Sunday.
He was “diagnosed with a coronavirus infection at a hospital in Riyadh”, the ministry announced in a statement reported by the official SPA news agency.
A batch of medical tests sent to “a specialised laboratory outside the kingdom” showed that the man, who did not leave Riyadh, was infected with a virus that had caused fears of an outbreak ahead of last month’s hajj pilgrimage.
It did not say when the man was diagnosed with the illness.
He “received suitable treatment and has been cured”, said the statement, adding that “the state of his health is reassuring”.
“These are individual cases and most of those infected with this virus have been cured after being provided with suitable treatment,” it said, without mentioning if any other patients had been diagnosed with the disease.