"After questioning
relatives, it turned out that none of these people had been abroad
before being infected," Dr Ziad Mimish, who heads the ministry's disease
prevention unit, told AFP.
The outbreak occurred in the oil-rich Red Sea region of Al-Ahsaa, which
is near Bahrain and Qatar.
The ministry was working closely with the World Health Organisation over
cases registered in Saudi Arabia but did not need help from foreign
medical teams, Mimish said.
A system was put in place across the kingdom to detect suspected cases
and to monitor the condition of medics in contact with the patients, he
added.
The WHO reported on Friday that three new cases of the virus were
detected in Saudi Arabia, bringing to 27 the global total of confirmed
cases, including 16 deaths.
The virus was first detected in mid-2012 and is a cousin of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when
it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts.
The mysterious virus has been deadliest in Saudi Arabia, and the other
cases were reported in Jordan, Germany and Britain.
Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-saudi-victims-sars-like-virus-didnt.html#jCp - http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-saudi-victims-sars-like-virus-didnt.html#jCp
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