UAE Confirms First Cases of Coronavirus in Middle East

Four members of a family from Wuhan, China, have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in the United Arab Emirates, the first confirmed cases in the Middle East of the deadly pathogen that has killed well over 150 people and sparked fears of a global pandemic. According to the UAE’s Health Ministry, the infected people were placed “under medical monitoring,” although their exact condition was not revealed. Officials from the World Health Organization said the family had arrived in the UAE earlier this month from Wuhan, the quarantined Chinese city where the outbreak originated. The coronavirus has spread during the past five weeks to more than a dozen countries, with confirmed infections approaching 6,000. To date, fatalities have only been reported in China, where cities with over 50 million citizens have been locked down in a bid to contain the disease’s spread.