NEW YORK (AP) -- A deadly new respiratory virus related to SARS
has apparently spread from patients to health care workers in
eastern Saudi Arabia, health officials said Wednesday.
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 Organization 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.
Experts have suggested calling the new virus MERS, for Middle
East Respiratory Syndrome, but officials have not signed off on
that yet.
Experts are watching carefully for signs that the deadly virus
can spread from person-to-person. Health officials say the virus
has likely already spread between people in some circumstances,
including hospital patients in France. But the confirmed spread to
nurses or other health care workers is new.
The new virus has caused severe respiratory disease in patients,
some of them needing mechanical ventilators to help them
breathe.
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 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. 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 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 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.
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