WHO says new virus may have caused China pneumonia outbreak

A cluster of more than 50 pneumonia cases in China's central city of Wuhan may be due to a newly emerging member of the family of viruses that caused the deadly SARS and MERS outbreaks, World Health Organization (WHO) said on Jan. 8.   

While the United Nations health agency said it needed more comprehensive information to confirm precisely the type of pathogen causing the infections, it said a new coronavirus was a possibility.   

On Jan. 9, China's official Xinhua news agency said preliminary lab results conducted by a team of experts showed a new type of coronavirus caused the outbreak that began in December.    

Xu Jianguo, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering who led the team, told Xinhua that tests on samples from patients found 15 positive results of the new coronavirus.

Fifty-nine cases of pneumonia have been reported as of Jan. 5.   

"It may take years for researchers to develop medicines and vaccines," the Xinhua report said.

The outbreak comes ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays in late January when many of China's 1.4 billion people will be traveling to their home towns or abroad.

The Chinese government expects passengers to make 440 million trips via rail and another 79 million trips via airplanes, officials said during a briefing on Jan. 9.

Wang Yang, the Chinese transport ministry's chief engineer, said at the briefing that authorities will step up efforts to prevent the pneumonia outbreak from spreading further during the holiday period, including ensuring proper disinfection in major public transportation hubs.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause infections ranging from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome...