SARS-like cluster fears

A second diagnosis of the new SARS-like coronavirus has been confirmed in France, the Health Ministry said yesterday, in what appeared to be a case of human-to-human transmission.

The new infection was found in a 50-year-old man who had shared a hospital room with France’s only other known sufferer.

Health experts are concerned about clusters of the coronavirus strain, nCoV, which was first spotted in the Gulf and has spread to France, Britain and Germany. There has been little evidence of direct and sustained human-to-human transmission of nCoV.