Dutch scientists on Sunday announced they had uncovered a previously unknown virus, a cousin to SARS, that causes respiratory sickness and is likely to have spread around the world.
The virus is only the fourth so-called coronavirus ever to be found in nearly four decades, and could explain many cases of respiratory illness that leave doctors baffled.
Named HCoV-NL63, the virus causes symptoms similar to a bad cold and does not unleash the pneumonia characterised by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, which killed some 800 people and infected 8,000 in a 2002-03 epidemic.
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