JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia said Thursday there have been no cases in the Kingdom of the coronavirus that has killed 18 people in China.
Earlier, India’s minister of state for external affairs V. Muraleedharan said an Indian nurse working at a hospital in southwestern Saudi Arabia had been infected and was being treated.
However, India’s consulate in Jeddah said it had spoken with Tarik Al-Azraqi, chairman of the Scientific Regional Infection Control Committee in Asir Region, and that the woman is suffering from a different strain of the coronavirus to the one that originated in Wuhan.
The woman “is suffering from MERS-CoV and not 2019-NCoV (Wuhan),” the consulate tweeted.
Saudi Arabia’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said there were no cases of the Chinese novel coronavirus so far.
Muraleedharan said about 100 Indian nurses “mostly from Kerala working at Al-Hayat hospital have been tested.
The woman effected by the Mers coronavirus is being treated at Asir Central Hospital and is recovering well, he said.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia said it would screen travelers arriving from China.
The SARS-like virus that emerged in Wuhan has infected more than 630 people and has been detected in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the United States, but not in India or Saudi Arabia.
