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- Mar 4, 2013
- Updated: 5:34am
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Novel coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which are known to cause illness in humans and animals. As of 28 September 2012, scientists confirmed two cases of a never-seen-before strain of the virus, a 60-year-old Saudi Arabian man who died in June 2012, and a Qatari man, 49, with travel history to Saudi Arabia. Their symptoms included acute, serious respiratory illness presented with fever, cough, shortness of breath, and breathing difficulties. The novel coronavirus is genetically quite distinct from SARS. There has been no evidence to date that the novel coronavirus has been transmitted from person to person.
Second case of Sars-like virus in Britain indicates human-to-human infection
Britain's second victim of novel coronavirus infection had close contact with first patient, who may have caught it in the Middle East
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A patient in Britain has contracted a new Sars-like virus, showing the deadly infection is being spread from person to person.
The latest case brings the worldwide number of confirmed infections with the new virus - known as the novel coronavirus - to 11, of whom five have died. Most of those had recently travelled in the Middle East.
According to Britain's Health Protection Agency yesterday, the patient had close personal contact with a case that was identified on Monday as Britain's second. This patient had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The latest victim may also have been at greater risk of infection due to an underlying medical condition and is currently in intensive care.
The virus belongs to the same family as Sars, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which a decade ago devastated Hong Kong, killing 299 people, after it emerg ed on the mainland in late 2002. It killed about a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Symptoms common to both viruses include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Novel coronavirus was identified when the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued an international alert in September last year, saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia.
"Confirmed novel coronavirus infection in a person without travel history to the Middle East suggests that person-to-person transmission has occurred, and that it occurred in the UK," said John Watson, the UK Health Protection Agency's head of respiratory diseases.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Yet since the virus was identified in September, health experts say evidence of person-to-person transmission of novel coronavirus has been limited.
The president of the University of Hong Kong's Centre of Infection, Dr Ho Pak-leung, said the key now was whether the virus had mutated to a form more transmissible among humans.
"If the virus becomes easily transmittable between humans, there will be clusters of outbreaks in a short period of time," he said.
Present circumstances did not suggest signs of mutation, and he expected the answer would be revealed after UK authorities had sequenced viral DNA from the 11th patient.
The new cases posed no immediate threat to Hong Kong but needed to be followed, Ho said. Last night the Department of Health said it was closely monitoring the situation.
The WHO said on Monday that the confirmation of a new British case did not alter its risk assessment but "does indicate that the virus is persistent".
While person-to-person transmission may have occurred in some other cases in the Middle East, the risk of infection was low, the WHO said. It added there was no need for travel restrictions or special screening at borders.
Reuters, Associated Press
