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The World Health Organization said Monday it is too soon to say whether there could be an outbreak of a SARS-like killer respiratory disease after health officials in Britain announced they detected a related virus in a severely ill patient from the Middle East.

British officials alerted WHO on Saturday of the new virus in a man transferred from Qatar for treatment in London. He had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, where another man died of a similar illness earlier this year.

The man in the new case was sickened by a coronavirus, from a family of viruses which causes most common colds but also includes the virus that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. In 2003, SARS killed some 800 people, mostly in Asia, in a short-lived epidemic.

Its still very early days, said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. At the moment we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in. Hartl said it was unclear how the virus is spread and there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Coronaviruses are typically spread in the air but Hartl said scientists were considering the possibility that patients were infected directly by animals. All possible avenues of infection are being explored right now, he said.

So far there is no connection between the cases except for a history of travel in Saudi Arabia. SARS was first spread to humans from civet cats in China.

Hartl said no other countries have so far reported any similar cases to WHO.

Other experts said it was unclear how dangerous the virus is. We dont know if this is going to turn into another SARS or if it will disappear into nothing, said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota. He said it was crucial to determine the ratio of severe to mild cases.

SARS hit more than 30 countries worldwide after spreading from Hong Kong. Osterholm said it was worrying that at least one person with the disease had died. You dont die from the common cold, he said. This gives us reason to think it might be more like SARS, which killed about 10 percent of the people it infected.

Britains Health Protection Agency and the World Health Organization said in statements that the 49-year-old Qatari national became ill on Sept. 3, having previously traveled to Saudi Arabia. He was transferred from Qatar to Britain on Sept. 11 and is being treated in an intensive care unit at a London hospital for problems including kidney failure. Respiratory viruses arent usually known to cause serious kidney problems.

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New SARS-Like Virus Detected in the Middle East

Global health officials are closely following a new respiratory virus related to SARS that is believed to have killed at least one person in Saudi Arabia and left another person in critical condition in Britain.

The germ is a coronavirus, from a family of viruses that cause the common cold as well as SARS, the severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed some 800 people, mostly in Asia, in a 2003 epidemic.

In the latest case, British officials alerted the World Health Organisation on Saturday (Sunday, NZT) of the new virus in a man who transferred from Qatar to be treated in London. He had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia and is now being treated in an intensive care unit after suffering kidney failure.

Health officials don't know yet whether the virus could spread as rapidly as SARS did or if it might kill as many people.

"It's still (in the) very early days," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. "At the moment, we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in."

Hartl said it was unclear how the virus spreads. Coronaviruses are typically spread in the air but Hartl said scientists were considering the possibility that the patients were infected directly by animals.

He said there was no evidence yet of any human-to-human transmission.

"All possible avenues of infection are being explored right now," he said.

New Zealand's director of WHO national influenza centre, Dr Sue Huang, said she found out about the new virus yesterday.

The virus was "very new" and there were still several questions that needed to be answered.

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Man struck down with new killer virus

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

24/09/2012 6:53 AM | Comments: 0

LONDON - The World Health Organization said Monday it is too soon to say whether there could be an outbreak of a SARS-like killer respiratory disease after health officials in Britain announced they detected a related virus in a severely ill patient from the Middle East.

British officials alerted WHO on Saturday of the new virus in a man transferred from Qatar for treatment in London. He had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia, where another man died of a similar illness earlier this year.

The man in the new case was sickened by a coronavirus, from a family of viruses which causes most common colds but also includes the virus that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. In 2003, SARS killed some 800 people, mostly in Asia, in a short-lived epidemic.

"It's still very early days," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. "At the moment we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in." Hartl said it was unclear how the virus is spread and there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Coronaviruses are typically spread in the air but Hartl said scientists were considering the possibility that patients were infected directly by animals. "All possible avenues of infection are being explored right now," he said.

So far there is no connection between the cases except for a history of travel in Saudi Arabia. SARS was first spread to humans from civet cats in China.

Hartl said no other countries have so far reported any similar cases to WHO.

More:
WHO monitoring SARS-like virus in 2 men who had travelled in Saudi Arabia; 1 has died

VET Trevor Munro is warning pet owners to keep unvaccinated dogs indoors, after an outbreak of a deadly virus in Faversham.

Mr Munro, of Faversham Veterinary Clinic, says he has seen six confirmed cases of canine parvovirus, and suspects a further 20 dogs have the infection. The other two vets surgeries have not reported any cases.

WORRIED: Trevor Munro of Faversham Veterinary Clinic says unvaccinated dogs are at risk GIIS20120913A-001_C

Parvovirus is a highly contagious condition which causes vomiting and dysentery, and can lead to heart failure and death within 30 hours. But courses of vaccinations, with yearly boosters, prevent it.

Mr Munro, who owns the West Street surgery, explained: "We heard a rumour that lots of dogs were dropping dead and thought it was just that; a rumour.

"But in the last few weeks we've had six cases where parvovirus has been confirmed and two thirds of those dogs died of vomiting and diarrhoea.

"We've seen dogs come in seconds away from death, it's very sad."

The disease is highly contagious and can be passed from dog to dog or by contact with dog faeces.

Mr Munro stressed that the virus only affects dogs and cannot be passed to cats or humans.

He added: "Last time I saw this disease was in the Third World, treating an epidemic in Fiji. In the UK, the virus usually occurs in run-down areas because of low levels of vaccinations, so it is unusual to see it somewhere like Faversham.

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Dogs 'dropping dead' after killer virus spreads in Faversham

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry Article Date: 15 Sep 2012 - 3:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Killer Virus Uses Protein Wrap To Evade Immune System

Writing about their work in the 13 September issue of the online open access journal PLoS Pathogens, lead researcher Erica Ollmann Saphire, and colleagues, suggest their breakthrough offers new targets for drugs and vaccines.

The virus was discovered in the 1960s after lab scientists in Marburg in Germany and other labs in Europe, became infected. The lab in Marburg was using African green monkeys and their tissue to develop a polio vaccine. The five species of Ebola virus are the only other known members of the filovirus family.

The virus has been imported into the United States (Colorado) and the Netherlands by tourists who visited Africa.

There is currently no cure for Marburg infection, which is spread when people come into contact with bodily fluids from an infected person or animal. Most people die within two weeks, from dehydration, massive bleeding and shock: a small proportion have naturally strong and immediate immune responses and survive.

"When these are sensed, an immediate antiviral defense is launched. However, the Marburg and Ebola viruses mask the evidence of their own infection. By doing so, the viruses are able to replicate rapidly and overwhelm the patient's ability to launch an effective defense," she explains.

The immune system relies on being able to recognize the double stranded RNA (dsRNA) at the heart of viruses: this "key signature" of virus infection is detected by "host sentry proteins" like RIG-I and MDA-5, write the authors.

And they had also, from examining the crystal structure of the protein from two ebolaviruses, showed that it formed "an asymmetric dimer to cap the ends of dsRNA molecules".

But what was not clear, until this study, was whether the protein was able to mask the lengths of dsRNA that lie between the ends of the molecules.

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Killer Virus Uses Protein Wrap To Evade Immune System