The World Health Organization (WHO) released a worldwide health
alert Sunday (September 23) after the United Kingdom’s Health
Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed that a newly identified
virus—genetically related to the SARS virus—has infected a
second patient, who was last reported in critical condition in
London. The virus was first identified this summer in Saudi
Arabia following the death of a 60-year-old pneumonia patient.
It is a type of coronavirus, a group that includes cold viruses
as well as the SARS virus, which caused a global outbreak of
severe respiratory illness between 2002 and 2003, killing more
than 700 people. So far, health experts are optimistic that the
new virus will not have the same tragic spread. “SARS was very
quick off the mark, infecting hospital staff etc., and this new
virus does not to me appear to be in the same 'big bang' group,”
John Oxford, a virology expert at Queen Mary, University of
London told BBC News. The London patient had recently traveled
to Saudi Arabia where it is