WHO issues global alert over new virus

London: The World Health Organisation has put out a global alert after two men were struck down with a previously unknown virus related to the deadly Sars infection and the common cold.

The UN health body’s alert comes after a 49-year-old Qatari man, affected by the virus, is critically ill in a hospital in Britain following a recent trip to Saudi Arabia -- where it said a second patient with an almost identical virus had already died.

A senior British health official said there was no immediate cause for concern although experts were watching out for any signs of the virus spreading.

Any suggestions of a link between the virus and Saudi Arabia will cause particular concern in the build-up to next month’s Haj, when millions of people arrive in the kingdom from across the world, then return to their homes.

The virus, known as a coronavirus, comes from the same family as the Sars infection that emerged in 2002 and killed 800 people.

“The (Qatari) patient is still alive but, as we understand, in critical condition,” he said.

The man first showed symptoms of an acute respiratory infection and kidney failure while he was in Qatar, the WHO said.

He spent some time in intensive case in Qatar and was later flown to the UK where he was being treated in a London hospital, said authorities, declining to say which one.

Laboratory tests on the Qatari man showed his virus was almost identical to one that killed a Saudi patient earlier this year, the WHO said. The Saudi man’s virus was not identified as a new kind of infection at the time of his death.

The WHO said it was in touch with health authorities in Britain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and at the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

Britain’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) said it had conducted lab testing on Qatari case and found a 99.5 percent match to a virus that killed a 60-year-old Saudi national earlier this year.

“This new virus ... is different from any that have previously been identified in humans,” the HPA said.

John Watson, head of the HPA’s respiratory diseases department, added there was no evidence of ongoing transmission.

Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London said virus was unlikely to prove a major concern and experts hoped the two cases would turn out to be “just a highly unusual presentation of a generally mild infection”.

The HPA is not recommending any specific action for members of the public or tourists and travellers, but said it would issue further advice as more information became available.