Jordanian official reveals earliest-known MERS outbreak infected at least 10 people

An electron microscope image of a coronavirus, provided by the British Health Protection Agency, is shown. The virus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments, including the common cold and SARS, and was first identified last year in the Middle East. (Health Protection Agency)

A retrospective study has shown that the earliest known outbreak of the MERS coronavirus infected at least 10 people.

Two of those cases, from an outbreak in Jordan in April of 2012, have been previously reported.

An official of Jordan's Ministry of Health revealed the news today in an interview from Amman.

Dr. Mohammad Al-Abdallat says blood samples from 124 people were tested for antibodies to the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus.

He says eight people tested positive, including six people who had been known to be sick at the time of the outbreak, one health-care worker and one household contact of a confirmed case.

The two previously confirmed cases died at the time of the outbreak but were confirmed later using samples that had been stored.

The study was a joint effort by the Jordanian health ministry and scientists from the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control in Atlanta.

The additional cases, if added to the World Health Organization's global tally, would bring the global count to 72 cases, 38 of which have been fatal.

The cases in Jordan occurred at Zarqa, southwest of Amman. The outbreak happened before the existence of the new virus was recognized. At the time no cause for the cluster of severe pneumonias was identified.

In June of 2012, scientists at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, identified a previously unknown coronavirus -- a cousin of the virus that caused SARS -- in a sample taken from a Saudi man who had died from a similar pneumonia in a hospital in Jeddah.

The bulk of the diagnosed infections to date have occurred in Saudi Arabia, which on Sunday revealed they had found three new cases in disparate parts of the country.

A recent outbreak of hospital-related cases in Saudi Arabia has racked up several dozen cases in the kingdom's Eastern Province. But in recent days cases have popped up in Taif, near the holy city of Mecca, Jeddah and Riyadh.