WHO voices concern over virus

(Vatican Radio) A Qatari man is critically ill in a British hospital with a previously unknown virus that is related to the SARS infection.

The U.N. health body put out a global alert on Sunday about the 49-year-old man who had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia - where it said a second patient with an almost identical virus had already died.

Vatican Radio’s Ann Schneible spoke with the World Health Organization’s spokesman Gregory Hartl about the situation. The WHO is working with the authorities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in its investigations of the virus.

“We don’t know that much yet,” Hartl said, “and we are busy gathering information. That is our priority at the moment.”

Hartl emphasized that there is no reason for concern at the present time. “There are only two cases, and these two cases were three months apart. We just don’t know how these infections occurred. We might not see new cases again; on the other hand, we might see new cases very soon.”

Listen to the WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl’s full interview with Ann Schneible: