Anyone watched the movie "Contagion"...?

SARS-Like Virus Kills 2 More in Saudi Arabia - WSJ.com

Updated May 6, 2013, 3:42 a.m. ET
SARS-Like Virus Kills 2 More in Saudi Arabia

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER in Riyadh And BETSY MCKAY in Atlanta

RIYADH—Saudi Arabia announced two more deaths overnight Monday in the latest outbreak of a SARS-like virus currently centered on a small hospital in the kingdom's east, bringing the toll reported by the government at the health center since Wednesday to seven dead and another six who have fallen ill.

The latest deaths, a 62-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man, heightened worries in Saudi Arabia and abroad that the outbreak of an apparently Middle East-based disease known as the novel coronavirus could be escalating.

The surge of fatalities brings confirmed deaths in the yearold outbreak to 18 and overall cases to 30. It has heightened concern from ordinary Saudis and international medical officials that the kingdom is not disclosing enough information on the outbreak to help limit and stop the spread. Most of the cases reported have been in Saudi Arabia.

The 13 cases linked to one Saudi hospital suggest the spread of this coronavirus may have reached a dangerous new stage in which it is spreading from one human to another, rather than infecting humans from another source such as an infected animal, according to infectious disease experts.

The virus has spread quickly: 13 people were infected between April 14 and May 1, nearly half of the 30 total cases that have been reported to the World Health Organization. Of those 30 cases, 18 have died, giving the disease a case fatality rate similar to that of the feared H5N1 avian flu.

Saudi Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish announced the two new deaths, and another case of a patient in critical condition with coronavirus, in an email published late Sunday on the international Promed medical website.

"Transmission seems linked to one (health-care facility)" in the city of Hofuf, in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, Dr. Memish said in the brief email. It stated that no community transmission appeared likely in the latest outbreak, but did not clarify or elaborate further on the cases.

At the health ministry, staffers said neither Dr. Memish nor other health officials would be available to speak Monday about the outbreak.

According to the World Health Organization, the coronavirus—which is related to the SARS virus that struck Asia a decade ago—first appeared in a "health-care setting" in April 2012 in Jordan, where it killed two people. More cases since have been confirmed in Saudi Arabia, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.