The WHO announced this in a bulletin. Analysis of the deceased patient is still ongoing. The new coronavirus is worrisome because it’s related to SARS. On November 13, the UK’s Health Protection Agency announced that it had achieved a complete genome of the virus obtained in London. It’s closely related to a coronavirus isolated from bats in the Netherlands several years ago. The WHO statement doesn’t give ages, genders of places of residence for the new cases, and it says nothing about the way that they were infected. It does suggest that the virus may be more widely distributed than was previously thought. There have been some indications that the flow of information on this new virus may not be complete as health authorities might wish. The WHO recommends that countries should consider testing patients with unexplained pneumonia cases for the new coronavirus, even in the absence of travel or any association with the two affected countries.
