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Third UK case of 'Sars-like' coronavirus identified Coronavirus: Signs the new Sars-like virus can spread between people
(35 minutes later)
A third patient is being treated in the UK for a new respiratory illness similar to the deadly Sars virus. By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
They are a relative of another patient who was diagnosed with the infection earlier this week. Health officials in the UK believe they have the strongest evidence yet that a new respiratory illness similar to the deadly Sars virus can spread from person to person.
It raises concerns that the infection can spread between people, however, officials say the threat to the whole population remains "very low". Cases of the infection come from contact with animals. However, if the virus can spread between people it poses a much more serious threat.
The total number of confirmed cases around the world stands at 10, five have died. One person in the UK is thought to have caught the infection from a relative.
However, officials say the threat to the whole population remains very low.
There have been 11 confirmed cases of the infection around the world, five patients have died.
This is the third case identified in the UK. The first was a patient flown in from Qatar for treatment. The second was linked to travel to the Middle East and Pakistan.
The virus is then thought to have spread from the second patient to a close relative. There have been suggestions of person to person transmission in earlier cases in the Middle East, but this was not confirmed.
Susceptible
The third UK case is being treated in intensive care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
The patient is known to have an underlying health condition which may have made them susceptible to the infection.
Prof John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the Health Protection Agency, said: "Confirmed novel coronavirus infection in a person without travel history to the Middle East suggests that person-to-person transmission has occurred, and that it occurred in the UK.
"Although this case provides strong evidence for person to person transmission, the risk of infection in most circumstances is still considered to be very low."
Bats are thought to be the source of the new Sars-like virus. However, as long as the infection needs to jump from an animal to a person with each infection the threat is much lower.
The World Health Organization reported cases from within the same family in Saudi Arabia in November 2012.
It was impossible to tell if the patients had each caught the infection from animals - or if it had spread between them.
The two cases in the UK, with only one case linked to foreign travel, provide the strongest evidence that the infection can spread between people.
However, if the virus could readily and easily spread between people then far more cases than the 11 detected so far would have been detected.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses ranging from the common cold to the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus, which spread through droplets of body fluids produced by sneezing and coughing.
In 2002 an outbreak of Sars killed about 800 people after the virus spread to more than 30 countries around the world.
The new coronavirus was first identified in September 2012 in a patient in Saudi Arabia who has since died.
No travel restrictions are in place.
Prof John Oxford, a virology expert at Queen Mary, University of London, said: "This doesn't raise too many alarm bells.
"In a family things can spread far more easily than they would spread outside, people share towels and toothbrushes etc.
"If it was somebody who was not related or a nurse or a doctor - that would be a lot more serious."