WHO reports 9th death from new SARS-like virus

"A Saudi man infected with a deadly new virus from the same family as SARS has died, becoming the ninth patient in the world to be killed by the disease which has so far infected 15, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday," Reuters reports. "The 39-year-old developed symptoms of the novel coronavirus (NCoV) on February 24 and died on March 2, several days after being hospitalized, the WHO said in a disease outbreak update," the news service writes.

"NCoV is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that first emerged in Asia in 2003," Reuters notes. "Research by scientists in Europe has found that NCoV is well adapted to infecting humans and may be treatable with medicines similar to the ones used for SARS, which killed a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected," the news service adds (Kelland, 3/12).