Second suspected case of deadly virus in Dublin

A second suspected case of the new pneumonia virus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was being investigated tonight in a Dublin hospital.

The new patient found to be suffering from symptoms similar to the flu-like ones associated with SARS was, like the first, a man who had recently returned to Ireland from a trip to South East Asia where the illness is reckoned to have originated, killing some people and affecting scores of others.

As in the first case the man was receiving treatment described as purely precautionary after reporting to a hospital.

The development emerged after a meeting in Dublin today of a committee of medical experts established by Health Minister Micheal Martin, specially to monitor the SARS position.

The group concluded that the first of the patients, now recovering after entering hospital earlier this week, was unlikely to be found to have contracted SARS and stressed that the risk of infection was very low.