WHO fears mystery pneumonia may be deadly new strain

The lethal strain of pneumonia that has been transmitted around the world and infected hundreds of victims might be a new disease, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

As the first British patient showed signs of recovery in North Manchester General Hospital, where he has been kept since returning from Hong Kong at the weekend, WHO officials said the cause of the disease could be a new infectious agent. "As time goes by that is increasingly likely, simply because so many people have run so many tests," said Iain Simpson, a spokesman. "If it is something we already knew about, we would almost certainly have identified it."

Meanwhile, a man believed to have contracted the virus was being treated in a Dublin hospital last night, Ireland's National Disease Surveillance Centre confirmed.

Spain reported its first suspected case yesterday. A man aged 38, who was in Beijing on business last month, is being treated in hospital in the southwest city of Badajoz. But unlike other cases, he is responding well to antibiotics.

In Manchester, doctors said the 64-year-old businessman struck by the illness, known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, on Sunday, had recovered enough yesterday to talk to his wife from the isolation ward.

Roger Glew, the medical director for Pennine Acute NHS Trust, which covers North Manchester General Hospital, said: "He was having severe difficulty breathing [on Monday] but that has eased. He is much less short of breath."

The global death toll rose to 10 yesterday – two in Canada, two in Hong Kong and one in Vietnam as well as five further deaths believed to be linked, in the southern Chinese province of Guandong. Several hundred people have been infected and suspected cases have been taken to hospitals in Europe and North America after travelling from the Far East.

Scientists in the WHO's network of 11 laboratories in 10 countries round the world continued to try to identify the infection and find a treatment, and officials warned that more cases would come to light as awareness of the illness grew. "That does not mean there is a growing pandemic. It is better reporting," a spokesman said.

Hong Kong reported 28 extra cases of severe pneumonia yesterday, bringing the total there to 111. But health authorities in Vietnam, where there have been nearly 60 cases, said the outbreak there had been contained.

Thai Airways said it was issuing masks to all travellers from countries the WHO had identified as affected.

Scientists investigating the cases have a long list of possible causes, including a family of agents called the paramyxoviruses.