While much of the world is focused on the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China, Saudi Arabia has quietly announced that five people have died from the novel coronavirus (NCoV).  The virus has killed 11 of the 17 people it has infected for a mortality rate of 65%.

The virus is in the same family as the SARS virus that emerged in Asia in 2003 and caused hundreds of deaths worldwide.  While NCoV is still in the early stages and thus could have a lower overall mortality rate, by comparison the mortality rate for SARS during the 2003 outbreak was 9.6%.

Confirmed cases of NCoV have been found in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and the U.K.  The European victims of the virus either traveled to the  middle east or were in close contact to a victim who had traveled to that region.  Unlike the H7N9 virus outbreak, the NCoV virus has been conclusively proven to travel human-t0-human.

The World Health Organization said the latest cases were not within the same family and that none of the victims showed recent travel or contact with animals.   (Scientists have been investigating the possibility the virus originated in animals.)  The Saudi Health Ministry said they have taken samples from anyone connected to the fatalities to see if they might be infected with NCoV.

The WHO says despite the evidence of human-to-human transmission, the threat to the general population is small.