http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/sars/news/mar0613corona.html

Novel coronavirus infection - update

6 March 2013 - The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia has informed WHO of a new confirmed case of infection with the novel coronavirus (NCoV).

The patient, a 69-year-old male, was hospitalized on 10 February 2013 and died on 19 February 2013. Preliminary investigation indicated that the patient had no contact with previously reported cases of NCoV infection and did not have recent history of travel.

To date, WHO has been informed of a global total of 14 confirmed cases of human infection with NCoV, including eight deaths. Of the total number, seven cases, including five deaths, have been reported from Saudi Arabia.

Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States (MS) to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns. WHO is currently working with international experts and countries where cases have been reported to assess the situation and review recommendations for surveillance and monitoring.

All MS are reminded to promptly assess and notify WHO of any new case of infection with NCoV along with information about potential exposures that may have resulted in infection and a description of the clinical course.

WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry with regard to this event nor does it recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied.

WHO continues to closely monitor the situation.

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Birmingham grandad is UK's second Coronavirus victim

23 Mar 2013 09:00

Birmingham grandad Abid Hussain has become the UK’s second victim to the new Sars-like bug Coronavirus.

The tragedy comes as Mr Hussain’s wife and daughter were in Pakistan after burying his son Khalid, 38, who had also fallen victim to the killer disease.

The dad-of-two, in his 60s, of Winson Green, was being treated at Wythenshawe Hospital, in Manchester, and seemed to be improving.

But he took a turn for the worse and lost his battle on Tuesday.

His funeral was held at a mosque in Small Heath, on Wednesday and his body has now been taken to Pakistan for burial.

Close friend Abdul Rashid, 60, had known Mr Hussain for more than 20 years and described him as a “wise and gentle man”.

He said: “I am very upset that he has died. It is a great shock to the family and the community. His wife and daughter were still in Pakistan dealing with the son’s burial and were planning to come back when Abid died.

“It was a shock to discover he was suffering from this terrible disease when he came back from Mecca. His daughter had gone out there with him, but was given the all clear.”

Mr Hussain had contracted the disease after a trip to Saudi Arabia with his daughter. He complained of a temperature and chest problems to his friend Abdul upon his return at the end of January and within a few days he was admitted to City Hospital, in Birmingham.

It’s thought during this period that his son, dad-of-two Khalid, suffering from cancer, picked up the bug from his father.

Khalid was undergoing chemotherapy at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Edgbaston. He continued to be treated there for both conditions and sadly died on February 17.

It’s thought Mr Hussain never knew that his son had passed away.

Abdul explained: “I spoke with Abid on the phone two days after he came back from Saudi Arabia. He was complaining of a temperature and chest problems. I told him to go and see the doctor, and then said I would speak to him again afterwards.

“But I didn’t get to as he was admitted to hospital. I went to see him but he was unconscious.

“It was a few days later that the hospital realised what was wrong and he was transferred to the hospital in Manchester for specialist care. I was kept updated on his condition and went to see him there.”

And he paid tribute to his friend: “Abid was a very wise man who had an extremely gentle personality. We’d been friends for more than 20 years and we knew each other through family. His son Khalid also lived in Birmingham before moving to Rotherham.”

The first patients infected with the coronavirus fell ill in Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia last year, but the source of the infection remains unknown, despite missions by the World Health Organisation and other international groups. As with Sars, the virus has most likely jumped from bats into other animals, in this case perhaps goats or other livestock, which have gone on to infect humans.

It has infected at least 15 people since it emerged in the Middle East last year – more than half of whom have died of pneumonia and multiple organ failure, symptoms that were common in Sars patients.

A Wythenshawe Hospital spokesman confirmed Mr Hussain had died on Tuesday

UAE man dies from novel coronavirus in Germany

Lisa Schnirring  Staff Writer

Mar 26, 2013 (CIDRAP News) – A man from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hospitalized in Germany with a novel coronavirus (NCoV) infection died today, according to reports from German health officials and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said in a statement in German that the man died today from a severe infection. He had an underlying illness and was on a ventilator when he was flown to Munich and hospitalized on Mar 19 and diagnosed with an NCoV infection on Mar 23. The RKI also said lab tests revealed other respiratory pathogens, but it did not say which ones.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed the patient's NCoV infection and death, noting that he was a 73-year-old man who had been transferred by air ambulance from a hospital in Abu Dhabi to Munich.

In its statement the WHO also confirmed the death of a British man who was the index patient in a recent family case cluster of NCoV infections. The latest developments push the global number of confirmed NCoV cases to 17, including 11 deaths.

The WHO said it is working with experts and countries that have reported cases to assess the situation and review recommendations for surveillance and reporting. It reminded countries to promptly report any new NCoV cases, including information about potential exposures and a description of the clinical course.

WHO's statement included no other information about the cases, but new details about German's latest imported case were included in some media reports. According to a report in German today from Bild, a newspaper based in Berlin, the man died of "circulatory shock" at Munich Municipal Hospital. It said the man was a member of the ruling family of Dubai and got sick after going to a camel race.

The RKI said the identification of a second imported NCoV case in Germany doesn't increase the risk to the general population, because so far there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.

Global health officials have not determined how the virus spreads to humans, but genetic sequencing studies have suggested that the new virus is most closely related to bat coronaviruses.

So far all countries linked to the infections are in the Middle East: Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Two of the patients in the three-person British family cluster did not have a recent travel history, but they did have contact with the index patient, who had recently traveled to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update today that NCoV symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. It said NCoV isn't like any other coronavirus that has infected humans before, including SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). However, it added that, like SARS, NCoV is most similar to coronaviruses found in bats.

Investigators are trying to determine the source of the virus and how it spreads, the CDC said. It added that coronaviruses usually infect only one species or a small number of related species. However, the CDC noted that the SARS coronavirus can infect a range of people and animals, including monkeys, Himalayan palm civets, raccoon dogs, cats, dogs, and rodents.

So far no infections have been reported in the United States, and no travel warnings have been posted for any countries.

Hong Kong prepares for new coronavirus

Coronavirus could cause deep lung infection

April 4 2013 at 09:57am
By Kerry Sheridan

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Washington - A new and deadly virus that has killed 11 of the 17 patients treated for it in the Middle East and Britain appears to cause an infection deep in the lungs, researchers said on Wednesday.

Six research monkeys infected with novel human coronavirus were found to quickly develop pneumonia, according to a letter by National Institutes of Health experts in the New England Journal of Medicine.

After being exposed to samples of the virus, the rhesus macaques fell ill within 24 hours, with symptoms including elevated temperature, lack of appetite, coughing and fast breathing.

The macaques' illnesses appeared to last a few days before clinical symptoms went away. After euthanizing the monkeys, scientists found bright red lesions and darker purple areas of pulmonary inflammation in their lungs.

“We actually see that it replicates deep down in the lungs of the monkeys, which potentially could explain the disease in humans better,” researcher Vincent Munster of the NIH/National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana told AFP in a phone interview.

“This kind of explains why this virus potentially could be fatal. If it replicates deep down in the lungs, eventually it could destroy the lungs' ability to take up oxygen and eventually cause severe disease,” Munster added.

Kidney failure has been seen in people who have died of the disease, which was first detected last year.

The animal research is a “first step toward getting to know what the virus does in humans” and should help experts narrow down vaccine strategies and antiviral options for intervention, he told AFP.

The letter to the New England Journal of Medicine is the first to describe animal research on the virus. Previous attempts to study it in hamsters were of little use, Munster said.

But many questions remain about the virus, which seems to resemble Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) - which erupted in Southeast Asia a decade ago - and bird flu in the way it affects the lungs.

It is formally called hCoV-EMC/2012, which stands for human coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Centre, after the Dutch health institution that identified it.

The virus sample provided to researchers at the Rocky Mountain lab by Erasmus for the monkey research did not appear to cause the severe type of disease that has been seen in humans, Munster said.

That could indicate that there are more mild cases in circulation among humans, or it could reflect a difference in the way primates and humans react to the infection.

Current research has been limited to studying cases in people who have been hospitalised with severe illness.

The World Health Organisation reported in late March that a 73-year-old man from the United Arab Emirates had become the 11th fatality from novel coronavirus. The WHO has documented a total of 17 cases globally.

Also last month, scientists reported in Nature magazine that the virus appears to infect the body via a docking point in lung cells, and suggested bats may be a natural reservoir for it.

Researchers believe the virus can be transmitted from human to human, though such occurrences appear to be uncommon.

It remains unknown whether the disease is truly rare and acute, or if it may be more abundant but mild so as to escape detection most of the time. - Sapa-AFP