New York: A deadly new respiratory virus related to Sars has apparently spread from patients to health care workers in eastern Saudi Arabia, health officials said.
The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia told world health officials that two health care workers became ill this month after being exposed to patients with the virus. One is critically ill.
Since September 2012, the World Health Organisation has been informed of 40 confirmed cases of the virus, and 20 of the patients have died. The deaths occurred in in France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Kingdom.
The confirmed spread to nurses or other health care workers is new. One of the Saudi health care workers is a 45-year-old man who is in critical condition. The other is a 43-year-old woman in stable condition. No other details about their jobs or where they work were released.
The Who is currently not recommending any travel restrictions or special screening at airports or border crossings. Officials worry it will flare into an outbreak as big or worse. The new virus has been compared to Sars, an unusual pneumonia that first surfaced in China in late 2002 and erupted into a deadly international outbreak in early 2003.
The spread of the virus in hospitals was a key development in the epidemic. Ultimately, more than 8,000 cases were reported in about 30 countries, including eight people in the United States. The global tally included 774 deaths.
The Sars outbreak was declared contained by the summer of 2003, thanks to such measures as quarantines, hospital isolation of suspected cases, travel restrictions and the screening of airline passengers. The new virus and Sars are both coronaviruses, a germ family that includes some cold viruses. The new virus is distinct from Sars, but health officials worry it has potential to flare into a Sars-like international outbreak. But many questions remain about how it is spread, where it originated, and how deadly it truly is.
