LONDON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has reported another case of infection in a concentrated outbreak of a new strain of a virus that emerged in the Middle East last year and spread into Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

In a disease outbreak update issued from its Geneva headquarters, the WHO said the latest patient is an 81-year-old woman with multiple medical conditions. She became ill on April 28 and is in a critical but stable condition.

Worldwide, there have now been 41 laboratory-confirmed infections, including 20 deaths, since the new coronavirus was identified by scientists in September 2012.

The novel coronavirus, which had been known as by the acronym nCoV but which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, belongs to the same family as viruses that cause common colds and the one that caused a deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.

MERS cases have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Britain, Germany and France, but Saudi Arabia has had the vast majority of cases.

The WHO said that latest patient was in the same clinic in eastern Saudi Arabia that has seen 22 cases, nine of them fatal, since April 8.

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Pregnant women could suffer complications with their unborn children if they catch rubella

Health officials have warned that action is needed to prevent a rubella outbreak, which can be particularly dangerous to pregnant women.

Public Health Wales and national deaf-blind charity Sense say about 38,000 young people in Wales have not had the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) jab.

They welcomed the efforts to increase vaccinations in light of the measles epidemic centred on Swansea.

But they said more people need to have the recommended two doses.

The measles epidemic has seen 1,094 cases reported in the Swansea area, with 1,257 across Wales.

If rubella is contracted by a pregnant woman, it can cause babies to be born with combined sight and hearing loss along with life-threatening heart conditions and a long list of other health issues.

Joff McGill, of Sense, said: “We can’t sit around and wait for rubella outbreaks to follow measles – now is the time to catch up and stay ahead of rubella.

“We must act now to protect pregnant women and their unborn babies. Women who are unsure of their vaccination history and are thinking about becoming pregnant should contact their GP for advice.”

Mr McGill added: “The large group of 38,000 unvaccinated young people in Wales, along with evidence of increasing susceptibility to rubella in younger woman and in women from ethnic minorities, means immunisation can no longer be a childhood issue.

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COPENHAGEN | Sat May 18, 2013 2:05pm EDT

WASHINGTON | Fri May 17, 2013 5:17pm EDT

Article written by Fergus Walsh Medical correspondent

This technique allows thousands of images of the early embryo to be taken

Time-lapse imaging which takes thousands of pictures of developing embryos can boost the success rate of IVF, according to British research.

The method, reported in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, can be used to select embryos at low risk of defects.

Scientists at the CARE fertility group say such informed selection can improve birth rates by 56%.

Other experts say the result is exciting, but the study of 69 couples is too small to be definitive.

The research followed the couples at the CARE fertility clinic in Manchester last year, when 88 embryos were imaged and implanted.

The embryos were put into an incubator and imaged every 10-20 minutes.

The researchers classified the embryos as low, medium or high risk of chromosome abnormalities based on their development at certain key points.

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