Third case of SARS-like virus reported in Saudi Arabia

Last Updated: Monday, November 05, 2012,08:37

Tags: SARS-like virus, Saudi Arabia, Coronavirus, Severe acute respiratory syndrome

Third case of SARS-like virus reported in Saudi Arabia

Riyadh: A new case of SARS-related virus has been detected in Saudi Arabia.

The infected Saudi patient was, however, cured after receiving treatment at a Riyadh hospital, the official Saudi news agency was quoted as saying.

The potentially deadly novel coronavirus is from the same family as SARS but had only been confirmed in two previous cases: a 60-year-old Saudi man who died earlier this year, and a man from Qatar who was treated in a London hospital.

The germ is a coronavirus, from a family of viruses that cause the common cold as well as SARS, the severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed around a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide, mostly in Asia, in a 2002 epidemic.

Coronaviruses primarily infect the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract.

Earlier, Health Minister Abdullah Al Rabeah had said that the spread of coronavirus infection in the country was limited.

IANS

First Published: Monday, November 05, 2012, 08:37

Comments

c smith - london
this is misleading as no-one is `cured` of a virus by `appropriate treatment`! the bodies own immune system has to mount a fight back. hence antibodies - natural or artificially triggered by vaccines deveoped for known viruses it it as far as modern medicine is concerned. ecmo etc can support body functions when failure occurs as is happening with the qatari in london. even the most dangerous novel viruses have a fatality rate of 15% max. it would be interesting to know the age of this patient...