The World Health Organization (WHO) released a worldwide health alert Sunday (September 23) after the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed that a newly identified virus—genetically related to the SARS virus—has infected a second patient, who was last reported in critical condition in London.
The virus was first identified this summer in Saudi Arabia following the death of a 60-year-old pneumonia patient. It is a type of coronavirus, a group that includes cold viruses as well as the SARS virus, which caused a global outbreak of severe respiratory illness between 2002 and 2003, killing more than 700 people. So far, health experts are optimistic that the new virus will not have the same tragic spread.
“SARS was very quick off the mark, infecting hospital staff etc., and this new virus does not to me appear to be in the same 'big bang' group,” John Oxford, a virology expert at ...
