India says nurse in Saudi not infected with China virus

An Indian nurse working in Saudi Arabia has tested positive for coronavirus, but with a different strain from the one wreaking havoc in China, Delhi's consulate in Jeddah said on Thursday.

The Saudi Center For Disease Prevention And Control tweeted on Thursday that there were: "No cases of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Saudi Arabia so far."

Saudi Arabia has started screening passengers arriving from China and has taken other preventive measures following the outbreak of the new coronavirus in China, the kingdom's health ministry said on Wednesday. Quoting Tarik Al Azraqi, chairman of the Scientific Regional Infection Control Committee in Aseer Region, the consulate tweeted that the woman "is suffering from MERS-CoV & not 2019-NCoV (Wuhan)."

Earlier, India's minister of state for foreign affairs V. Muraleedharan had said that the woman had tested positive for the same respiratory virus that has killed 18 people in China.

The woman was one of 100 Indian nurses working in Saudi Arabia who were tested. Media reports said she may have contracted the virus from a colleague from the Philippines.

The SARS-like virus that emerged in Wuhan has infected more than 570 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.