First UK victim of Sars-like virus dies at a hospital in Birmingham

06:55 EST, 19 February 2013

• The patient, who was being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, died on Sunday
• Was a relative of patient being treated in Manchester after bringing back coronavirus from Middle East
• Hospital says patient was already receiving treatment for long-term, complex health condition
• A new Sars-like illness has claimed its first UK victim, health officials confirmed today. 
  The 39-year-old man, who was being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, died on Sunday after becoming infected with the novel coronavirus, the hospital confirmed today. 
  Of the 12 confirmed cases worldwide four have been British and five have died as a result of the virus...
  'QEHB is working closely with the Health Protection Agency which is currently following up other household members and contacts of this case.
  Professor John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the HPA, said: ‘This case is a family member who was in close personal contact with the earlier case and who may have been at greater risk of acquiring an infection because of their underlying health condition. 
  'To date, evidence of person-to-person transmission has been limited. 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.'
  Infected patients have presented with serious respiratory illness with fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.
  

  The lining of the lung, or epithelium, represents an important first barrier against respiratory viruses
  Today, experts suggested the virus could potentially be treated by targeting the immune system.
  The coronavirus (NCov) belongs to the same family as the coronavirus SARS, which surfaced in China more than a decade ago and infected 8,000 people worldwide, killing around one in 10 of them.
  It's thought the virus can penetrate the lining of the passageways in the lung and evade the immune system as easily as a cold virus can.
  The research also reveals that the virus is susceptible to treatment with interferons, components of the immune system that have been used successfully to treat other viral diseases, opening a possible mode of treatment in the event of a large-scale outbreak.
  Now scientists at the Institute of Immunobiology at Kantonal Hospital in Switzerland, have tested how well the virus could infect and multiply in the entryways to the human lung using cultured cells manipulated to mimic the airway lining.
  
  The lining of the lung, or epithelium, represents an important first barrier against respiratory viruses.
  But, said co-author Dr Volker Thiel, this part of the body does not put up a big fight against NCoV.... 
  
  
  He and his colleagues found that human airway epithelial cells are highly susceptible to NCoV infection and that the virus is able to multiply at a faster initial rate than the SARS virus.
  He said: 'Surprisingly, this coronavirus grows very efficiently on human epithelial cells.'
  The researchers asked themselves whether boosting this weak immune response might diminish the virus' ability to infect airway epithelial cells. 
  They found that pre-treating the cells with proteins that are released in response to infection, significantly reduced the number of infected cells.
  But he added:'We don't know whether the cases we observe are the tip of the iceberg, or whether many more people are infected without showing severe symptoms.'
  The findings were published in the online journal mBio.
  
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