Qatari man critically ill in UK with new SARS-type virus


LONDON - A Qatari man struck down with a previously unknown virus related to the deadly SARS virus and the common cold is critically ill in hospital in Britain, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

 
The United Nations health body said it is urgently seeking more information about the new virus, which comes from the same family as the SARS virus that emerged in 2002 and killed 800 people.
 
Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London, said the virus was unlikely to prove a concern, but experts would watch out for any sign of it spreading.
 
The 49-year-old patient has symptoms of an acute respiratory infection and kidney failure, the WHO said, without giving details of which hospital he was staying in.
 
"The patient is still alive but, as we understand, in critical condition," Gregory Hartl, spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO, told Reuters.
 
"We are still investigating this. We're asking for information from whoever might have seen such cases, but as of the moment we haven't had any more notifications of cases."
 
The WHO issued a statement late on Sunday through its "global alert and response" system saying tests on the Qatari man had confirmed the presence of a new, or novel, coronavirus.
 
"Given that this is a novel coronavirus, WHO is currently in the process of obtaining further information to determine the public health implications," the statement said.
 
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which includes the common cold and SARS.
 
SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, appeared in China in 2002 and infected more than 8,000 people around the world, killing around 800 of them before being brought under control.
 
The WHO said the Qatari patient had gone to the doctor on September 3, 2012, suffering from the symptoms of an acute respiratory infection. It did not say in which country the diagnosis was made.
 
On September 7, he was admitted to an intensive care unit in Doha, Qatar and on September 11, the man, who had also recently been in Saudi Arabia, was transferred to Britain by air ambulance from Qatar.
 
It did not say why the ill man had been moved to the UK.
 
"The Health Protection Agency (HPA) of the UK conducted laboratory testing and has confirmed the presence of a novel coronavirus," the WHO said.
 
It said scientists at the HPA compared gene sequences of the virus from the Qatari patient with samples of virus sequenced by Dutch scientists from lung tissue of a fatal case earlier this year in a 60-year-old Saudi national.
 
The results showed a 99.5 percent identity match, it said.
 
Openshaw said the fact the two cases found so far are apparently unrelated suggests "that what has been picked up is just some rare event that in past times might have been undiagnosed".
 
But he added: "Any evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission or of contact would be more worrying, raising the worry that another SARS-like agent could be emerging." — Reuters

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PCG: China’s bullying in West Philippine Sea undermines international law --- Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — Letting China sustain its aggression in the West Philippine Sea would make other countries doubt the strength of international law currently being asserted by the Philippines, Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. “Allowing China to blatantly disregard the established rules-based order threatens the very foundation that we all depend on,” he wrote in a post on X last Tuesday. He added, “If we permit this, countries worldwide may forget why this order was created in the first place. Nations could begin to doubt the significance of adhering to international law if powerful bullies can easily violate it.” Tarriela also said defiance of other countries to a rules-based order would result in the prevalence of cruelty. He wrote, “This could lead us back to a time when might makes right, undermining the global structures that keep human greed, savagery and barbarism in check. Such a scenario would not only invite challenges from aggressive ...
Read more

China ships maintain presence in key West Philippine Sea areas --- Michael Punongbayan - The Philippine Star

STAR / Michael Varcas MANILA, Philippines — While Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) have decreased in number, they have maintained a presence in three key land features where naval and coast guard ships have intensified operations in the past seven days, according to the Philippine Navy. Latest monitoring by the Philippine Navy showed armed ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) maintaining a menacing presence around the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal, Panatag Shoal and Escoda Shoal. According to the Philippine Navy, there are 17 Chinese military vessels and 28 China Coast Guard (CCG) boats spotted inside the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Sept. 23 and 30, or one vessel more than in the previous week Sept.17-23. Five of the warships were seen roaming around the vicinity of Escoda Shoal, along with 10 CCG vessels and 12 maritime militia vessels (MMVs). There are also two PLAN ships in Ayungin Shoal as well as 10 CCG boats and 12...
Read more

Social media seen as cause of rising intermarriages --- Helen Flores - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) sees social media as the main reason for the rising number of Filipinos marrying or becoming partners of foreign nationals. In 2022, the CFO recorded 6,854 marriages or partnerships with foreign nationals, a 40.1 percent increase from the 4,891 “intermarriages” recorded in 2021. “First of all, what we see in the increase in the marriage rate of Filipinos or Filipinos with foreign partners is because of social media, (that) is number one; matchings; letters, introduction of their friends,” CFO chairperson Romulo Arugay said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing yesterday. Arugay said the agency has been registering a high number of intermarriages since 2007, but the figures went down during the COVID-19 pandemic. From over 6,500 Filipinos who married foreign nationals, only 600 are men, he said. Most of them are married to Americans, Japanese, Germans, Canadians and Australians, Arugay said. Arugay warned Fi...
Read more