GENEVA: Saudi Arabia said Friday it would send samples taken from animals possibly infected with a deadly SARS-like virus to the United States for testing in a bid to find the source of disease.

The Saudi health ministry has "collected large samples from bats and other animals, including camels, sheep and cats," said Saudi Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish.

So far, there have been 44 lab-confirmed cases worldwide of the virus, which until now has been known as the novel coronavirus, or nCoV-EMC, but was this week redubbed the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, or MERS.

Saudi Arabia counts by far the most cases, with 30 confirmed infections and 17 fatalities, while cases have also been detected in Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Britain and France.

Memish told diplomats gathered in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, that his country until now had not been able to send samples from animals besides bats to the United States.

"But now... we've got an approval to move these samples and they will be shipped for testing," he said.

The virus is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and eventually killing some 800 people.

Scientists at the Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam have determined that the virus appears to infect the body via a docking point in lung cells, suggesting bats may be a natural reservoir for it.

Bats were also pinpointed as a likely natural reservoir for SARS in a 2005 study, and are known carriers of the deadly haemorrhagic fever Ebola.

The WHO said Friday that much uncertainty remained surrounding MERS, stressing that it aimed to work closely with Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and perhaps other Middle Eastern countries to determine how great the risk is.

"We will organise joint mission teams as soon as possible to collect all the facts," WHO chief Margaret Chan told delegates in Geneva, adding that not enough was known about the incubation period for the virus, which signs and symptoms to look for and how it spreads.

Without a proper risk assessment, she said, it was difficult to know what advice to give on travel restrictions, for instance.

It was "quite urgent" to determine if any such restrictions were needed before the annual hajj that draws millions of pilgrims to the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia in October, she added.

Chan also voiced concern over Riyadh's claim Thursday that foreign laboratories had patented the virus, which it said had slowed down the diagnostics process.

She vowed to investigate which barriers the Saudis were facing and said the WHO's legal department was looking at the legal ramifications of the intellectual property issue.

WHO spokesman Gregory Haertl told reporters it was not possible to patent the actual virus, but rather "the work based on the viral sequence that a lab generates," which is what the scientists at the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands had done.

That lab however appeared to have openly shared its sequencing with a number of other labs, he said.

KARACHI: Eleven more Dengue Viral Fever cases were detected in Karachi in last four days said Dengue Surveillance Cell here Friday.

According to Provincial Focal Person for Dengue Surveillance Cell Sindh, total 141 dengue fever cases have been reported in Sindh province, out of them 133 in Karachi, while eight cases in rest of Sindh this year so for.

Eight dengue patients were still admitted to hospitals and six new cases were reported in Karachi from 23 to 24 May. They were admitted to hospitals. (PPI)

LAHORE: Two more children died of deadly measles while 47 new cases have been reported during last 24 hours raising the death toll to 121 in Lahore, Geo News reported.

Two girls identified as 2-year-old Zahra and Sana died in Mayo Hospital. With these two deaths, the number of measles victims alone at this hospital has reached to 50.

However, 21 more measles affected children are in Intensive Care Unit of Mayo hospital.

GENEVA: World Health Organization officials said Thursday that their probe into the deadly new coronavirus that has now claimed 22 lives is being delayed because of a dispute over the ownership rights to a sample _ a claim disputed by the researcher at the center of the issue.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security, says the organization is ``struggling with diagnostics'' into the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, because of the dispute.

Officials at the World Health Assembly in Geneva then publicly decried the public health impacts _ and legal fallout _ because a sample taken by Saudi microbiologist Ali Mohamed Zaki was mailed last year to virologist Ron Fouchier at the Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) in the Netherlands, where it was tested, sequenced and identified as a new virus.

Other researchers who want to obtain samples must first sign a material transfer agreement with the private medical center denoting ownership and user rights. That has delayed some of the testing, including serological tests of blood serum and other bodily fluids, according to officials. However a few other places including facilities in Canada, Britain and Germany that have obtained samples, the officials said.

WHO's director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, railed against the arrangement, which seemed to take some in the assembly hall by surprise. She pleaded with the hundreds of health officials at the annual World Health Assembly to ``share your specimens with WHO collaborating centers, not in a bilateral manner.''

``Please, I'm very strong on this point, and I want you to excuse me,'' she said. ``Tell your scientists in your country, because you're the boss. You're the national authority. Why would your scientists send specimens out to other laboratories on a bilateral manner and allow other people to take intellectual property rights on a new disease?''

Fouchier, however, says the material transfer agreement, known as an MTA, is similar to other ones used within WHO's networks.

``There are no restrictions to the use of the virus for research and public health purposes. There are only restrictions for commercial exploitation and forwarding virus to third parties. Very common in all MTAs, including those of WHO,'' he said by email responding to questions from The Associated Press.

Any delays claimed by WHO are a misconception, he said.

``After the first identification of the virus, diagnostic tests were developed in collaboration with several public health laboratories, and these tests were distributed free of charge to everyone around the world who asked for them,'' Fouchier added. ``We have not denied access to the virus to any research and public health laboratory with the appropriate facilities to handle this virus safely.''

The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO, runs from May 20-28.

Indonesia has previously refused to share samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus, claiming that vaccines made from those samples would be too expensive for developing countries to afford. That dispute led to a protracted series of negotiations with WHO and others to ensure poor countries would have access to vaccines in a pandemic.

At the assembly, Fukuda said the new coronavirus has now claimed 22 lives worldwide out of 44 lab-confirmed cases, mostly in Saudi Arabia.

The latest fatal case involves a 63-year-old man in central Saudi Arabia with an underlying medical condition who died Monday, five days after being hospitalized with acute breathing problems. WHO officials say they do not believe it is related to the cluster of cases reported from the country's east.

``There is a huge amount that we do not understand about this virus or this situation,'' he said.

Four out of five of the 44 confirmed cases affected men, and the patients' average age is 56, said WHO officials, citing information that comes in part from Saudi health authorities. Patients have been between the ages of 24 and 94.

Saudi authorities have reported 10 deaths from 22 cases since an outbreak began at a health care facility in April in the country's east, WHO officials said.

Fukuda said evidence in some of the disease clusters points to limited transmission from person to person. Last week, WHO said it was worried about the people affected by ``cases that are not part of larger clusters and who do not have a history of animal contact.'' WHO said those cases suggest the virus may already be spreading in the community.

Many health officials have been frustrated at the lack of detail coming out of Saudi Arabia about the virus and have complained there is not enough information about how cases are connected, their history and how they might have been exposed. Without that information, health officials will find it more difficult to track the virus' spread and how to prepare for a wider outbreak.

In a speech on Monday, Chan publicly praised China for its rapid sharing of information on the new bird flu, H7N9. She said nothing about Saudi Arabia and reminded countries of the importance of ``fully transparent reporting to WHO.''

Tunisia authorities have reported two confirmed cases, involving a brother and sister, and one probable case involving their 66-year-old father, who died in Tunisia on May 10, a week after returning from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

Countries where cases of infections were acquired within the country from an unknown source so far include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Fukuda said. Other countries where cases are associated with travel or contact with a returned infected traveler, he said, are so far known to be Germany, France, Tunisia and Britain.

``We do not know the full geographic spread of this virus,'' said Fukuda, who told the assembly that the incubation period seems to be anywhere from 2 days to 14 days.

WARSAW: Polish doctors carried out the world's first life-saving face transplant, the centre's spokeswoman said Wednesday, weeks after a 33-year-old man was disfigured by a machine in a workplace accident.

"It is Poland's first face transplant and also the first in the world done to save the patient's life," Anna Uryga, spokeswoman for the Cancer Centre and Institute of Oncology in the southern city of Gliwice, told AFP.

The man, an employee at a stonemason's workshop and only identified as Grzegorz, was severely maimed on April 23, when a machine used to cut stone ripped out a large chunk of his face.

An attempt to reattach it failed -- though it saved the man's vision and and a part of his face -- and because of the breadth and depth of the lesions "his life was on the line", Uryga said.

With time of the essence, doctors were lucky to find a donor within two weeks, a man in his thirties whose family immediately agreed to the operation.

The heart and liver of the deceased man were also donated to two other people.

A team of doctors at the centre -- the only one licenced to perform face transplants in Poland -- performed the 27-hour facial surgery on May 15, with the patient's full consent.

"He and his family approved the action plan and the associated risks. He was even enthusiastic," head doctor Adam Maciejewski told reporters.

Now, a week later, "his condition is still serious because it was a huge operation ... (but) he is breathing on his own. Unable to speak, he is communicating via head and hand movements," the doctor added.

Polish media published a photograph of the man flashing a thumbs-up from his hospital bed, with thick black stitches encircling his face.

"The patient will be able to eat, breathe and see. In eight months' time, he should have full facial motor control."

French doctors carried out the world's first successful face transplant in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog.

Since then, over 20 other transplants have been carried out worldwide, including in Belgium, Spain, Turkey and the US.

GENEVA: The world is unprepared for a massive virus outbreak, the deputy chief of the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, amid fears that H7N9 bird flu striking China could morph into a form that spreads easily among people.

Keiji Fukuda told delegates at a WHO meeting that despite efforts since an outbreak of another form of avian influenza, H1N1, in 2009-10, far more contingency planning was essential.

"Even though work has been done since that time, the world is not ready for a large, severe outbreak," Fukuda said.

Rapid-reaction systems were crucial, given that health authorities' efforts are already hampered by lack of knowledge about such diseases, he insisted.

"When people get hit with an emerging disease, you can't just go to a book and know what to do," he said.

According to the latest official data, H7N9 avian influenza has infected 130 people in China, and killed 35, since it was found in humans for the first time in March.

It is one of a vast array of flu viruses carried by birds, the overwhelming majority of which pose little or no risk to humans.

Experts are struggling to understand how it spread to people, amid fears that it could adapt into a form that can be transmitted easily from human to human.

"Any new influenza virus that infects humans has the potential to become a global health threat," WHO chief Margaret Chan told the meeting.

"This is a puzzling virus, surrounded by mystery," she added.

China's swift reaction to the outbreak, including shutting down poultry markets, has been widely praised.

Critics found fault with its handling of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- which triggered a global scare in 2003 when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and eventually killing some 800 people.

"After the SARS virus experience 10 years ago, the Chinese government invested heavily to upgrade capacity. We are reaping the benefit of that investment today," said Chan.

China's health minister, Li Bin, underlined that Beijing was coming to terms with the current outbreak but said concerns remained.

"Since May, the number of new cases has decreased significantly," Li said in Geneva.

"Prevention and control have been proven to be effective. However, due to our limited understanding of the virus and the disease, it is imperative to be vigilant, with contingency plans," she added.

China is considered one of the countries at greater risk from bird flu because it is a top global poultry producer and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.

The number of forms of flu is vast, given that the virus combines two proteins: one of 17 types of haemagglutinin, which provides the H, and any of 10 kinds of neuraminidase, which gives the N.

The more common strain of avian flu, H5N1, has killed more than 360 people globally since 2003, according WHO figures.

Fukuda noted that the far deadlier H7N9 struck in China around the same time as fears mounted elsewhere over the SARS-like novel coronavirus, of which there have been 40 laboratory confirmed cases, including 20 deaths.

While the virus has been deadliest in Saudi Arabia, which now counts 30 infections, half of them fatal, cases have also been reported in Jordan, Qatar, Germany, Britain and France.

"This is an unusual global situation," Fukuda said, underlining that the two viruses were unrelated.

"We have not seen a comparable situation since 2003, when we had both the SARS virus emerge and then later the H5N1 virus reemerge," he said.

Fukuda said that novel coronavirus was "more complex" to deal with than H7N9.

"There is even less information, even less understanding about what is the reservoir," he said.

"We do not know which one is going to evolve and gain the characteristics that we don't want it to gain," he added.

RIYADH: A Saudi man who had contracted the coronavirus has died, raising the death toll in the kingdom from the SARS-like virus to 16, the health ministry announced on Monday on its Internet website.

"One of the patients who had contracted the virus has died," in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia where most of the kingdom's cases have been registered, the ministry said.

It did not identify the victim, but said he was a diabetic who also had heart and kidney problems.

The ministry also said that the health of a nurse who had been infected by patients in the Eastern Region was now improving.

On Wednesday, the Geneva-based World Health Organisation reported that two Saudi health workers have contracted the deadly coronavirus from patients -- the first evidence of transmission in a hospital setting.

"This is the first time health care workers have been diagnosed with nCoV (novel coronavirus) infection after exposure to patients," the WHO said in a statement.

On Saturday, the health ministry said a new case had been detected, bringing to 31 the number of officially recorded cases in the country.

Since last September, the WHO says it has been informed of a global total of 40 laboratory confirmed cases of the virus, including 20 deaths.

While the virus has been deadliest in Saudi Arabia, cases have also been reported in Jordan, Qatar, Germany, Britain and France.

The virus is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and eventually killing some 800 people.

LAHORE: Measles has killed three more children in Lahore on Monday, Geo News reported.

The number of death from measles in different hospitals of the city have reached 100, however, Punjab Health Department says this number is 99.

According to reports, the health department has failed to control this deadly disease in Punjab that has affected 12,877 children in the entire province. In Lahore only, the number of affected children has crossed 4000.

On Monday, three died in Children hospital. They included two-year-old Umer, Javed and three-year-old Shah Mir from Gujranwala, Sahiwal and Lahore respectively.

RIYADH: A new case of the deadly coronavirus has been detected in Saudi Arabia where 15 people have already died after contracting it, the health ministry announced on Saturday on its Internet website.

"One new case of novel coronavirus recorded in the Eastern Region" where most of the kingdom's cases have been registered, said the ministry, which this week created a special web page dedicated to the outbreak.

"One case of coronavirus has been recorded in the Eastern Region, and he is now under the medical healthcare receiving the proper treatment," the web page in English reported.

The latest case takes to 31 the number of officially recorded cases of the virus in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom since September. Fifteen of those have died.

On Wednesday, the Geneva-based World Health Organisation reported that two Saudi health workers have contracted the deadly coronavirus from patients -- the first evidence of transmission in a hospital setting.

"This is the first time health care workers have been diagnosed with nCoV (novel coronavirus) infection after exposure to patients," the WHO said in a statement.

Since last September, the WHO says it has been informed of a global total of 40 laboratory confirmed cases of the virus, including 20 deaths.

While the virus has been deadliest in Saudi Arabia, cases have also been reported in Jordan, Qatar, Germany, Britain and France, where two patients are now in hospital in the northern city of Lille.

The virus is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and eventually killing some 800 people.

ISLAMABAD: A new study has concluded that middle-aged women who suffer from depression are almost twice as likely to have a stroke.

Researchers in a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, said that it was unclear why such a strong link between depression and stroke had been found, but that it was possible that inflammatory and immunological responses to depression could have an impact on blood vessels.

The study found that depressed women had a 2.4 times increased risk of stroke, compared to those who weren't depressed, which reduced to 1.9 times the risk when other factors increasing stroke risk were excluded.

Study author Doctor Caroline Jackson, an epidemiologist in the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland in Australia, said: "When treating women, doctors need to recognise the serious nature of poor mental health and what effects it can have in the long term.

"Current guidelines for stroke prevention tend to overlook the potential role of depression."

The research is the first large-scale study in which scientists examined the association between depression and stroke in younger middle-aged women.

The researchers said that although the increased stroke risk associated with depression was large, the absolute risk of stroke is still fairly low for women of that age.

About 1.5 per cent of all women in the study suffered a stroke.

Researcher added: "We may need more targeted approaches to prevent and treat depression among younger women, because it could have a much stronger impact on stroke for them now rather than later in life."