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                  Saudi Arabia Reports 13 Cases of Coronavirus

   by Reuters

   Saudi Arabia has 13 cases of a new strain of coronavirus that has
   emerged from the Gulf, has killed seven people in the kingdom and
   spread as far as Britain and France, the [1]World Health Organization
   (WHO) said on Wednesday.
   Saudi Arabia has reported 23 confirmed cases in total, Qatar two,
   Jordan two, Britain two and the United Arab Emirates one, the WHO said.
   Although there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human spread, there
   are concerns about clusters of cases.
   France reported its first case on Wednesday.
   The Saudi outbreak was restricted to al-Ahsa governorate in Eastern
   Province and all those infected had pre-existing health conditions,
   Arab News newspaper quoted Doctor Jafar al-Tawfiq, an infections
   specialist in Eastern Province, as saying.
   Officials at Al-Moosa hospital in the town of Hofuf in Ahsa, where the
   patients are being treated, declined to comment.
   WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas said in Geneva on Wednesday that Saudi
   authorities are organizing a mission with two WHO staff and that their
   focus will be on Hofuf.
   Saudi state news agency SPA quoted Deputy Health Minister Mansour
   al-Hawasi on Tuesday as saying the situation "called for no concern"
   and that the ministry had taken all precautions around anyone who had
   been in contact with those infected.
   Worldwide, there have been 30 laboratory-confirmed infections,
   including 18 deaths, since it came to scientists' attention last
   September, the WHO's Thomas said.
   Other strains of coronavirus can cause common colds as well as Severe
   Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that emerged in Asia in 2003 and
   killed 775 people.
   A retrospective study in Jordan found that there had been an outbreak
   of the new virus there as long ago as April 2012, with two confirmed
   cases and 11 probable ones, including 10 health care workers, the WHO's
   Thomas said.
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   [2]http://www.voanews.com/content/article/1656772.html

References

   1. http://www.who.org/
   2. http://www.voanews.com/content/article/1656772.html